1.  Swift, 

1007,  “ 

1749 

j  Addison.  — 

1072,  ” 

1719 

1  Steele,  — 

1674,  “ 

1729 

0.  Johnson. 

1709,  V 

1784 

4.  Goldsmith. — 

1728, 

1774 

.7.  Lamb, 

1775,  “ 

1834 

0.  DeQuincev.  — 

1785,  - 

1859 

7.  Carlisle, 

1 795.  “ 

— 

Thirdly:  Physics. 

1.  Bacon,  ■ — 

1561,  “ 

1620 

2.  Newton.  <- 

1642,  “ 

1727 

3.  Darwin.  — 

1809,  “ 

_ 

4.  Tyndall,  — 

1820,  “ 

3 - 

Fourthly:  Meta-" 
physics. 

1.  Locke,  — 

2.  Reid, 

1632,  “ 

1704 

1710,  “ 

1769 

3.  Ste.wart, 

1753,  “ 

1828 

4.  Hamilton,  — 

1788,  “ 

1856 

Fifthly:  Political 
Science. 

1.  Clarendon. 

1608,  “ 

1074 

2.  Burke, 

1730,  “ 

1797 

3.  Gladstone,  “ 

Sixthly:  Industrial 
Science. 

1.  Adam  Smith, 

1723,  " 

1790 

2.  Bentham. 

1749,  “ 

1832 

3.  Mill, 

1800,  “ 

1873 

Seventhly:  Law. 

J.  Blackstone,  — —  “ 

1723,  “ 

1780 

History— Involving  the  memory. 

1.  Ilume,  —  Born  1711,  Died  1790 

2.  Robertson.  “  1721,  “  1793 

0.  Gibbon,-"'  ••  1777,  “  1794 

4.  Macaulay.  “  ••  1800,  “  1859 

5.  Fronde,  “ - 

6.  Grun,  “  ’ 


To  those  desiring  to  get  a  comprehen- 
,  five  and  condensed  view  of  English 
literature,  the  above  chart  is  commend¬ 
ed  ..  .. 


1  1  excludes  the  minor  lights,  in  or- 
I  der  that  the  greater  lights  may'  appear 
j  the  more  brilliant,  and  in  order  further 
1  that  the  symmetry  of  the  entire  body 
ot  English  literature  mav  more  clearly 
be  perceived. 

e  may  follow  this  up  with  a  similar 
analytical  view  of  American  or  United 
.States  literature,  with  a  short  sketch  of 
each  representative  scholar  or  scientist 

J.  P.  T. 


f  i  /  /  /X/  . 


’  *  (  U/ 


<4^ 


LECTURES 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE, 

front  Onuccr  to  Ccmurson. 


By  HENRY  REED. 

9  i'7  A- 

l  , 


S  I  <  T  H  EDITION,  REVISED  AND  CORRECTED. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

CLAXTON,  REMSEN  k  HAFFELFINGER, 

1  8  7  G. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1S55,  by 
WILLIAM  B.  REED, 

the  Clerk’s  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  Eastern 
District  of  Pennsylvania. 


8AM 
7J  =3^ 


TO 

HJg  SBitwtoeft  Sister, 

WHO,  FOR  THE  SAKE  OF  THE  LIVING,  HAS  NOBLY  BORNE  HER  SORROW 
FOR  THE  DEAD, 

®{»s  Htnnorial  Uolumt 

1$  AFFECTIONATELY  INSCRIBEO 

W.  B.  K 


92  7X 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2017  with  funding  from 
Duke  University  Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/lecturesonenglis01reed_0 


CONTENTS. 


Introddctory  Notice . Payc  zv 

LECTURE  I.— INTRODUCTORY. 

PRINCIPLES  OP  LITERATURE. 

Object,  to  assist  and  guide  students — Necessity  of  systematic  study 
— Judicious  criticism — True  aims  and  principles  of  literature — 
Choice  of  books — Its  difficulties — Aim  of  this  course  of  lectures 
to  remove  thorn — All  books  not  literature — Accurate  definition 
of  literature  —  Its  universality — Izaak  Walton — Addison  — 
Charles  Lamb — Lord  Bacon — Clarendon — Arnold— Spenser  and 
Shakspeare — Southey  and  Wordsworth — Belles-lettres  not  li¬ 
terature — Literature  not  an  easy,  patrician  pleasure — Its  danger 
as  to  practical  life — Its  influence  on  character — De  Quincey’s 
definition — Knowledge  and  power — Influence  on  female  charac¬ 
ter — True  position  of  woman — Tennyson’s  Princess — Novel¬ 
reading — Taste,  an  incorrect  term — Henry  Taylor — Cowper — 
Miss  lYordsworth — Coleridgo’s  philosophy .  25 

LECTURE  II. 

APPLICATION  OP  LITERARY  PRINCIPLES. 

Narrow  and  exclusive  lines  of  reading  to  be  avoided — Catholicity 
of  taste — Charles  Lamb’s  idea  of  books — Ruskin — Habits  of 
reading  comprehensive — Ancient  Literature—  Foreign  Lan¬ 
guages — Different  eras  of  letters — English  essay-writing — 
Macaulay — Southey — Scott  and  Washington  Irving — Archdea¬ 
con  Hare— Lord  Bacon’s  Essays — Poetic  taste— influence  of 

is 


CONTENTS. 


individual  pursuits — Friends  in  Council — Serious  and  gay  books 
— English  humour — Southey’s  hallad — Necessity  of  intellectual 
discipline — Disadvantage  of  courses  of  reading — Books  not 
insulated  things— Authors  who  guide — Southey’s  Doctor — Elia 
— Coleridge — Divisions  of  Prose  and  Poetry — Henry  Taylor’s 
Notes  from  Books — Poetry  not  a  mere  luxury  of  the  mind — 
Arnold’s  habits  of  study  and  taste — The  practical  and  poetical 
element  of  Anglo-Saxon  character — The  Bible — Mosaic  Poetry 
— Inadequacy  of  language — Lockhart’s  character  of  Scott — Ar¬ 
nold’s  character  of  Scipio — Tragic  poetry — Poetry  for  children 
--Bobinson  Crusoe  and  the  Arabian  Nights — Wordsworth’s  Ode 
to  Duty — Character  of  Washington . ' . 54 

LECTUKE  III. 

THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

Medium  of  ideas  often  forgotten — Witchery  of  English  words — 
analysis  of  good  style  difficult— The  power  of  words — Our  duty 
tu  the  English  language — Lord  Bacon’s  idea  of  Latin — Milton — 
Ilume’s  expostulation  with  Gibbon — Daniel’s  Lament — Exten 
sion  of  English  language — French  dominion  in  America — Lan- 
dor’s  Penn  and  Peterborough — Duty  of  protecting  and  guarding 
language — Degeneracy  of  language  and  morals — Age  of  Charles 
II. — Language  part  of  character — Arnold’s  Lectures  on  Modern 
History — Use  of  disproportionate  words — Origin  of  the  English 
language  in  the  North — Classical  and  romantic  languages — 
Saxon  element  of  our  language — Its  superiority — The  Bible 
idiom — Structure  of  sentences — Prepositions  at  the  end  of  most 
vigorous  sentences — Composite  sentences,  and  the  Latin  element 
—Alliteration — Grandeur  of  sentences  in  old  writers — Modern 
short  sentences — Junius— Macaulay — No  peculiar  poetic  diction 
— Doctor  Franklin’s  rules — Shakspeare’s  matchless  words — 
Wordsworth’s  sonnet — Byron — Landor — Coleridge’s  Christabel 
— "The  Song  in  the  Mind” — Hood — The  Bridge  of  Sighs .  55 

LECTURE  IV. 

EARLY  ENGLISH  LITERATURE. 

Early  English  prose  and  uoetrv-^Sir  John  Mandevillg^-Sir  Tho¬ 
mas  More’s  Life  of  Edward  the  Fifth — Chaucer’s  Tales — At- 


COM  TENTS. 


tempted  paraphrases — Chaucer  Modernized — Conflict  of  Nor¬ 
man  and  Saxon  elements — Gower — Reign  of  Edward  the  Third — 
Continental  wars — Petrarch — Boccacio — Froissart — The  church 
-(-WycIif-^-Arts  and  Architecture — Statutes  in  English — Chau¬ 
cer  resumed — His  humour  and  pathos — Sense  of  natural  beauty 
— The  Temple  of  Fame — Chaucer  and  Mr.  Babbage — The  flower 
and  the  leaf — Canterbury  Tales — Chaucer’s  high  moral  tone — 
Wordsworth’s  stanza— Poet’s  corner  and  Chaucer’s  tomb — The 
death  of  a  Language — English  minstrelsy — Percy’s  Reliques 
— Sir  Walter  Scott — Wilson — Christian  hymns  and  chaunts — 
Conversion  of  King  Edwin — Martial  ballads — Lockhart — 
Spanish  ballads — Ticltnor’s  great  work — Edom  of  Gordon — 
Dramatic  power  of  the  ballad — The  Two  Brothers — Contrast  of 
early  and  late  English  poetry . 12J 

LECTURE  V. 

LITERATURE  OF  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY. 

Dawn  of  letters  a  false  illustration — Intellectual  gloom  from  Ed¬ 
ward  III.  to  Henry  VIII. — Chaucer  to  Spenser — Caxton  and 
the  art  of  printing — Civil  wars — Wyatt  and  Surrey— The  son¬ 
net  naturalized  in  English  poetry — Blank  verse — Henry  VIII. 

— Edward  VI. — Landor’s  Sonnet — Sternhold  and  Hopkins — 
Bishop  Latimer— Goodwin  Sands  and  Tenterden  Steeple — 
“Bloody  Mary” — Saekville — “The  Mirror  of  Magistrates”— 

His  career — Age  of  Elizabeth — Contrasts  of  her  life — The 
Church  as  an  independent  English  power — Shakspeare — His 
journey  to  London — Final  formation  of  the  English  language 
— “  The  well  of  English  undefiled” — The  Reformation — Sir 
Philip  Sydney — The  Bishop’s  Bible — Richard  Hooker — Spen¬ 
ser  and  Shakspeare — Wilson’s  Criticism  —  Sir  Walter  Raleigh 
— Shakspeare’s  Prose . . . 155 


LECTURE  VI. 

LITERATURE  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY,  WITH  INCIDENTAL 
SUGGESTIONS  ON  SUNDAY  READING. 

Hooker’s  Ecclesiastical  Polity — Progress  of  English  literature — 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh’s  History  of  the  World — Bacon’s  Essays- 
Milton — Comus — Hymn  on  the  Nativity— Suggestions  as  to 


xl) 


CONTENTS. 


Sunday  rending — Sacred  books — Forms  of  Christian  faith — 
Evidences  of  Religion — Butler’s  Analogy — Charles  Lamb's  Re¬ 
marks  on  Stackhouse — History  of  the  Bible — Jeremy  Taylor — 
Holy  Living  and  Dying — Life  of  Christ — Pulpit-oratory — Sou¬ 
they's  Book  of  the  Church — Thomas  Fuller — Wordsworth's 
Ecclesiastical  Sonnets — Izaak  Walton’s  Lives— Pilgrim’s  Pro¬ 
gress — The  Old  Man’s  Home — George  Herbert — Henry  Vaughan 
— Milton  resumed — Paradise  Lost — Criticism  on  it  as  a  purely 
sacred  poem — Shakspeare’s  mode  of  treating  sacred  subjects — 
Spenser — The  Faery  Queen — John  Wesley — Keble’s  Christian 
Yoar — George  Wither — Aubrey  De  Vere — Trench’s  Sonnet.  Page  184 

LECTURE  VII. 

LITERATURE  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  AND  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURIES. 

Milton’s  old  age — Donne’s  Sermons — No  great  school  of  poetry 
without  love  of  nature — Blank  in  this  respect  between  Paradise 
Lost  and  Thomson’s  Seasons — Court  of  Charles  the  Second — 
Samson  Agonistes — Milton’s  Sonnets — Clarendon’s  History  of 
the  Rebellion — Pilgrim’s  Progress — Dryden’s  Odes — Absalom 
and  Achitophel — Rhyming  tragedies — Age  of  Queen  Anne — 
British  Statesmen — Essayists — Tatlor — Spectator — Sir  R,oger 
De  Coverley — Pope — Lord  Bolingbroke — English  Infidels — 
Johnson’s  Dictionary — Gray — Collins — Cowper — Goldsmith —  ~ 
The  Vicar  of  Wakefield — Cowper — -Elizabeth  Browning .  215 

LECTURE  VIII. 

LITERATURE  OF  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 

Literature  of  our  own  times — Influence  of  political  and  social  re¬ 
lations — The  historic  relations  of  literature — -Tho  French  Revo¬ 
lution,  and  its  effects — Infidelity — Thirty  years’  Peace — Scien¬ 
tific  progress  coincident  with  letters — History — Its  altered  tone 
— Arnold — Prescott — Niebuhr — Gibbon — Hume — Robertson — 
Religious  element  in  historical  style — Lord  Mahon— Macaulay’s 
History — Historical  romance — Waverley  Novels — The  pulpit — 
Sydney  Smith — Manning — Poetry  of  the  early  part  of  the  cen¬ 
tury — Bowles  and  Rogers — Campbell — Coleridge’s  Christabel — 

Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel — Scott’s  poetry . 249 


CONTEXTS. 


xiil 


LECTURE  IX. 

CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 

Lord  Byron — His  popularity  and  its  decline — His  power  of  sim¬ 
ple,  vigorous  language — Childe  Harold — The  Dying  Gladiator 
— The  Isles  of  Greece — Contrast  of  Byron’s  and  Shakspoare’s 
creations — Miss  Barrett — Miss  Kemble’s  sonnet — Byron  as  a 
poet  of  nature — Ilis  antagonism  to  Divine  truth — The  Dream, 
the  most  faultless  of  his  poems — Don  Juan — Shelley — Leigh 
Hunt’s  remarks  on — Carlyle  —  His  earnestness — Southey — 

His  historical  works — Thalaba — Wordsworth — His  character¬ 
istics — Female  authors — Joanna  Baillie — Miss  Edgeworth — 
Mrs.  Kemble — Mrs.  Norton — Miss  Barrett — Cry  of  the  Chil¬ 
dren,  <fec . Pape  212 


LECTURE  X. 

TRAGIC  AND  ELEGIAC  POETRY. 

Contrast  of  subjects,  serious  and  gay — Tragic  poetry — Illustrated  in 
history — Death  of  the  first-born — Clarendon’s  raising  the  stand¬ 
ard  at  Nottingham — Moral  use  of  tragic  poetry — Allston’s  cri¬ 
ticism — Elegiac  poetry — Its  power  not  mere  sentimentalism — 
Gray’s  Elegy,  an  universal  poem — Philip  Van  Artevelde — Caro¬ 
line  Bowles — “  Pauper’s  Death  Bed” — Wordsworth's  Elegies — 
Milton’s  Lycidas — Adonais — In  Memoriam — Shelley’s  Poem  on 
Death  of  Keats — Tennyson — In  Memoriam  reviewed . 309 

LECTURE  XI. 

LITERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  HUMOUR. 

Subtilty  of  these  emotions — Sydney  Smith  and  Leigh  Hunt — 
Dullness  of  jest-books — Iludibras  a  tedious  book — Sydney 
Smith’s  idea  of  the  study  of  wit — Charles  Lamb — Incapacity 
for  a  jest — German  note  on  Knickerbocker — Stoicism  and  Pu¬ 
ritanism — Guesses  at  Truth — Cheerful  literature  needed  for 
thoughtful  minds — Recreative  power  of  books — Different  modes 
of  mental  relaxation — Napoleon — Shelley — Cowper — Southey’s 
merriness — Doctor  Arnold — Shakspeare  and  Scott’s  humour — 

The  Antiquary — Burke — Barrow’s  definition  of  wit — Hobbes — 

2 


CONTENTS. 


xiv 


Forms  of  Humour — Doctor  Johnson’s  grotesque  definitions — 
Collins  the  landscape  painter — Examples  of  grotesque  style — 
Irish  Bulls — Rip  Van  Winkle — Sj'dney  Smith  and  Doctor  Parr 
— Humour  in  old  tragedies — Lear  and  the  fool — Hamlet  and 
tho  grave-digger — Irony — Macbeth  and  the  doctor — Anne  Bo- 
leyn — Bishop  Latimer — Fuller — Dean  Swift  and  Arbuthnot — 
Gulliver — Sir  Roger  De  Coverley — Charles  Lamb — Swift  and 
Byron’s  humour — Prostitution  of  wit — Sir  Robert  Walpole — 
Lord  Melbourne — Hogarth — Danger  of  power  of  humour  illus¬ 
trated — Ruskin’s  criticism . Page  337 

LECTURE  XII. 

THE  LITERATURE  OF  LETTER-WRITING. 

Characteristics  of  a  true  letter— Historical  and  familiar  letters— 

Lord  Bacon — Dr.  Arnold’s  remarks — Despatches  of  Marlbo¬ 
rough — Nelson — Franklin — John  Adams — Reception  by  George 
III. — Washington’s  correspondence— Bishop  White’s  anecdote 
of  Washington — American  diplomatic  correspondence — Lord 
Chatham’s  Letters — Duke  of  Wellington’s — Archdeacon  Hare’s 
remarks  on — General  Taylor’s  official  letters — Familiar  letters  . 

— Cowley — Impropriety  of  publishing  privato  correspondence 
— Arbuthnot  and  Johnson’s  remarks  on — Burns’s  Letters — Ten¬ 
nyson — Howell’s  Letters — The  Paston  Letters — Lady  Russell’s 
— Pope’s — Hartley  Coleridge’s  remark — Chesterfield — Horace 
Walpole — Swift  and  Gray’s — Cowper’s — Scott’s — Byron’s — 
Southey’s,  and  Lamb’s  Letters  of  Dedication — Lamb’s,  to  his 
sister. . . . 376 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTICE. 


My  duty  in  editing  this  volume  is  a  very  simple  one: — tq 
state,  with  frankness  .and  precision,  the  circumstances  of  its 
publication,  and,  if  need  he,  to  disarm  criticism  by  the 
absence  of  any  thing  like  pretension  on  the  part  of  nim 
whose  posthumous  work  is  now  given  to  the  reading  world 
of  his  own  countrymen.  Immediately  on  my  brother’s 
death  in  the  autumn  of  last  year,  or  as  soon  (and  with  me 
it  was  very  soon)  as  all  hope  of  possible  rescue  had  faded 
away,  my  attention  was  turned  to  his  manuscript  lectures, 
delivered  in  different  courses  at  the  University  of  Pennsyl¬ 
vania.  I  knew  that,  as  popular  lectures,  or  rather  essays  at 
lectures,  they  had  been  very  successful,  and  I  hoped  and 
believed  they  would  bear  the  severer  test  of  being  printed. 
This,  I  was  well  aware,  is  not  always  the  case ;  and  I 
examined  these  manuscripts  with  the  idea  of  possible  inap¬ 
titude  clearly  in  my  mind.  The  result,  however,  was  a  con¬ 
viction  that  the  Lectures,  or  a  portion  of  them,  ought  to  be 
published.  They  contain,  aside  from  their  value  as  works 
of  criticism,  developments  of  the  pure  taste  and  gentle  feel¬ 
ing  of  the  author,  which  will  interest,  at  least  his  friends, 
and  be  appreciated  by  all  who  value  them  exactly  for  what 
they  were  designed — not  profound  disquisitions,  buc  popular 

xv 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTICE. 


sri 

lectures.  In  saying  this,  I  must  be  understood  as  speaking 
with  precision,  and  not  in  words  either  of  real  or  affected 
disparagement.  I  wish  to  describe  them  as  He  would  do, 
were  he  alive  to  speak  of  his  own  modest  work.  There  will 
lie  found  on  these  pages,  if  I  mistake  not,  hints  and  sugges¬ 
tions  of  philosophic  criticism  floating  on  the  surface  (or 
hidden  not  far  beneath)  of  a  most  graceful  and  attractive 
current  of  thought  and  language. 

It  will  be  farther  borne  in  mind  that  these  Lectures  are 
printed  exactly  as  written,  with  scarcely  a  verbal  altera¬ 
tion,  and  no  change  or  modification  of  opinion.  He  wrote 
from  a  full  mind,  often  with  great  rapidity,  and  without  the 
opportunity  or  the  necessity  of  revision.  Knowing  this  to 
be  his  habit  of  composition,  and  that  he  never  prepared 
himself  specially  for  any  one  lecture,  I  have  been  much 
struck  with  the  proof  they  afford  of  his  long  and  habitual 
studiousness  and  rich  and  accomplished  scholarship.  His 
citations  of  authorities,  or  rather  quotations,  are  purely 
incidental;  and  one  of  my  duties  has  been  to  trace  his 
studies  to  their  sources,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  verify,  by 
exact  reference,  the  citations  he  has  made.  In  this — for 
my  own  occupations  have  forced  my  ordinary  reading  into 
other  channels — I  have  been  aided  by  the  only  survivor 
(one  still  nearer  to  him  than  myself)  to  whom,  before 
delivery  and  as  he  wrote  them,  he  read  these  Lectures;  and 
also  by  bis  and  my  friends, — to  whom  I  am  glad  thus  to 
make  my  acknowledgments, — Mr.  George  W.  Hunter,  Mr. 
Ellis  Yarnall,  and  Mr.  William  Arthur  -Jackson. 

In  selecting  this  course  of  Lectures,  I  was  guided  by  two 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTICE. 


xvii 

considerations, — one  that  it  was  a  more  complete  and  con¬ 
tinuous  course  than  others ;  another,  that  it  was  among  the 
last  delivered  by  him.  The  dates  will  be  found  noted  in 
each  lecture. 

I  have  ventured  not  only  to  put,  in  the  form  of  notes,  some 
unconnected  remarks  by  the  author  himself  and  marked 
with  his  initials,  but  to  add  a  few  of  my  own.  These  are 
very  few,  and  are  meant  to  be  illustrative.  Perhaps,  in  the 
analysis  of  my  feelings,  there  may  be  another  pardonable 
motive,  in  an  affectionate  desire,  not  diminishing,  but  grow¬ 
ing  with  every  hour  of  desolate  separation,  of  connecting 
some  work  of  mine  with  his.  Now  that  it  is  done,  I  feel  as 
if  a  mournful  pleasure  were  over,  and  I  was  parting  anew 
from  him. 

Should  this  volume  be  received  with  interest  and  favour, 
it  is  my  wish  to  complete  the  series  by  two  other  courses 
on  kindred  subjects: 

1.  Lectures  on  Modern  History  down  to  the  Period  of  the 
Reformation;  and 

2.  Lectures  on  the  History  of  England,  as  illustrated  by 
Shakspeare’s  Historical  Dramas. 

If,  then,  (for  I  am  dealing  very  candidly  with  the  public,) 
sufficient  interest  be  felt  in  the  intellectual  and  moral 
developments  of  these  volumes  to  justify  such  a  tribute  to 
his  memory,  I  may  venture — at  least,  this  now  is  my  pur¬ 
pose — to  prepare  a  Memoir  of  my  brother’s  gentle  and  tran¬ 
quil  life,  and  very  interesting  correspondence  on  both  sides 
of  the  Atlantic.  The  life  of  a  secluded  American  scholar 

may  not  be  without  interest  to  those  near  and  at  a  distance. 

2* 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTICE. 


xviii 

With  this  hope  clearly  before  me,  and  dreading,  from 
observation  in  other  cases,  the  effect  of  a  preliminary 
memoir  which  affection  so  naturally  exaggerates,  I  shall 
now  simply  note  a  few  dates  and  incidents,  by  way  of  ex¬ 
planatory  introduction,  of  his  quiet  life. 

Henry  Reed  was  born  in  Philadelphia  on  the  11th  of 
July,  1808.  He  was  christened  by  the  name  of  Henry 
Hope,  though  the  middle  name  was  afterwards  dropped. 
His  early  education  was  at  the  classical  school,  of  high 
repute  in  its  day,  of  Mr.  James  Ross.  Here  began  a  friend¬ 
ship,  which  lasted  through  life  and  survived  in  earnest 
sorrow  for  his  premature  death,  with  Mr.  Horace  Binney, 
(the  younger,)  whose  name  I  venture  to  refer  to  in  simple 
justice  to  the  living  and  the  dead,  to  us  who  grieve  and 
to  him  for  whom  we  mourn.  This  friendship  was  faithful 
and  affectionate  to  the  end. 

Mr.  Reed  entered  the  Sophomore  class  at  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania  in  September,  1822,  and  was  graduated  as 
Bachelor  of  Arts  in  1825.  He  began  the  study  of  the  law 
under  the  general  guidance  of  Mr.  Sergeant,  then  at  the 
heighth  of  his  professional  fame,  and  was  admitted  to 
practice  in  the  District  Court  of  the  City  and  County  of 
Philadelphia  in  1829. 

In  September,  1831,  he  relinquished  the  practice  of  his 
profession,  and  was  elected  Assistant  Professor  of  English 
Literature  in  the  University.  In  November  of  the  same 
year,  he  was  chosen  Assistant  Professor  of  Moral  Philoso¬ 
phy.  In  the  service  of  the  College  he  continued  for  twenty- 
time  years,  faithful,  I  am  sure  I  may  say,  to  liis  duties. 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTICE.  xlx 

however  irksome;  and  never  in  all  that  period,  until  his 
visit  to  Europe,  absent  for  any  length  of  time  from  his  post, 
except  when  compelled  by  sickness.  In  1835,  he  was 
elected  Professor  of  Rhetoric  and  English  Literature. 

Mr.  Reed  was  married,  in  1834,  to  Elizabeth  White  Bron¬ 
son,  who,  with  three  children,  now  survives  him. 

It  had  long  been  his  wish  to  visit  Europe,  but  his  profes¬ 
sional  duties  and  other  claims  had  always  prevented  it.  In 
the  spring  of  1854,  the  Professorship  of  Moral  Philosophy, 
which  he  had  once  filled  as  Assistant  Professor,  being 
vacant,  Mr.  Reed  became  a  candidate  for  the  chair,  but  was 
not  elected.  Although  no  personal  disparagement  was 
intended,  so  earnest  and  so  reasonable  was  his  ambition 
for  what  he  considered  a  high  academical  distinction,  that 
his  disappointment  was  most  keen  and  depressing.  Ilis 
secluded  mode  of  life,  exempt  from  the  world’s  rough  com¬ 
petitions;  his  modest  wishes;  his  consciousness  of  services 
rendered  and  duties  performed;  his  natural  pride  in  the 
affection  of  his  students;  and,  above  all,  his  conviction  that 
moral  science,  in  its  highest  and  holiest  sense,  as  elevated 
by  religious  truth,  was  a  department  of  education  which  he 
was  peculiarly  competent  to  take  charge  of,  combined  to 
render  the  disappointment  very  poignant.  Ilis  friends  and 
family  never  saw  him  more  depressed.  I  certainly  never 
saw  him  so  deeply  wounded.  He  asked  for  leave  of  absence, 
which  was  granted  by  the  Trustees;  and  early  in  May, 
1854,  accompanied  by  his  sister-in-law,  Miss  Bronson,  ho 
sailed  for  Europe. 

No  American,  visiting  the  Old  World  as  a  private  citizen, 


XX 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTICE. 


ever  received  a  kinder  or  more  discriminating  welcome. 
The  last  months  of  his  life  were  pure  sunshine.  Before 
he  landed  in  England,  his  friends,  the  family  of  Dr.  Arnold, 
whom  he  had  only  known  by  correspondence,  came  on 
board  the  ship  to  receive  him;  and  his  earliest  and  latest 
hours  of  European  sojourn  were  passed  under  the  roof  of 
the  great  Poet  whose  memory  he  most  revered,  and  whose 
writings  had  interwoven  themselves  with  his  intellectual 
and  moral  being.  “  I  do  not  know,”  he  said  in  one  of 
his  letters  to  his  family,  “what  I  have  ever  done  to  deservo 
all  this  kindness.”  And  so  it  was  throughout.  In  England 
he  was  at  home  in  every  sense ;  and  scenes,  which  to  the 
eye  were  strange,  seemed  familiar  by  association  and  study. 
His  letters  to  America  were  expressions  of  grateful  delight 
at  what  he  saw  and  heard  in  the  land  of  his  forefathers,  and 
at  the  respectful  kindness  with  which  he  was  everywhere 
greeted ;  and  yet  of  earnest  and  loyal  yearning  to  the  land 
of  his  birth — his  home  and  family  and  friends.  It  is  no 
violation  of  good  taste  here  to  enumerate  some  of  the  friends 
for  whose  kind  welcome  Mr.  Reed  was  so  much  indebted ;  I 
may  mention  the  Wordsworths,  Southeys,  Coleridges,  and 
Arnolds,  Lord  Mahon,  Mr.  Baring,  Mr.  Aubrey  De  Vere, 
Mr.  Babbage,  Mr.  Henry  Taylor,  and  Mr.  Thackeray — 
names,  one  and  all,  associated  with  the  highest  literary 
or  political  distinction. 

He  visited  the  Continent,  and  went,  by  the  ordinary  route, 
through  France  and  Switzerland,  as  far  south  as  Milan  and 
"Venice,  returning  by  the  Tyrol  to  Inspruck  and  Munich, 
ona  thence  down  the  Rhine  to  Holland.  But  his  last 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTICE.  xxl 

associations  were  with  the  cloisters  of  Canterbury,  (that  spot, 
to  my  eye,  of  matchless  beauty,)  the  garden  valqs  of  Devon¬ 
shire,  the  valley  of  the  Wye,  and  the  glades  of  Rydal.  His 
latest  memory  of  this  earth  was  of  beautiful  England  in  her 
summer  garb  of  verdure.  The  last  words  he  ever  wrote 
were  in  a  letter  of  the  20th  September  to  his  venerable 
friend,  Mrs.  Wordsworth,  thanking  her  and  his  English 
friends  generally  for  all  she  and  they  had  done  for  him. 

The  rest  is  soon  told. 

On  the  20th  of  September,  1854,  Mr.  Reed,  with  his  sister 
embarked  at  Liverpool  for  New  York,  in  the  United  States 
steam-ship  Arctic.  Seven  days  afterward,  at  noon,  on  the 
27  th,  when  almost  in  sight  of  his  native  land,  a  fatal 
collision  occurred,  and  before  sun-down,  every  human 
being  left  upon  the  ship  had  sunk  under  the  waves  of  the 
ocean.  The  only  survivor  who  was  personally  acquainted 
with  my  brother,  saw  him  about  two  o’clock  p.m.;  after  the 
collision,  and  not  very  long  before  the  ship  sank,  sitting, 
with  his  sister,  in  the  small  passage  aft  of  the  dining 
saloon.  “  They  were  tranquil  and  silent,  though  their 
faces  wore  the  look  of  painful  anxiety.”  They  probably 
afterwards  left  this  position,  and  repaired  to  the  prome¬ 
nade  deck.  For  a  selfish  struggle  for  life,  with  a  helpless 
companion  dependent  upon  him,  with  a  physical  frame 
unsuited  for  such  a  strife,  and,  above  all,  with  a  sentiment 
of  religious  resignation  which  taught  him  in  that  hour  of 
agony,  even  with  the  memory  of  his  wife  and  children 
thronging  in  his  mind,  to  bow  his  head  in  submission  to  the 
will  of  God, — for  such  a  struggle  he  was  wholly  unsuited; 


xxii 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTICE. 


and  his  is  the  praise,  that  lie  perished  with  the  women  and 
children. 

Nor  can  I  conclude  this  brief  narrative  without  the  utter¬ 
ance  of  an  opinion,  expressed  in  no  asperity,  and  not,  I 
hope,  improperly  intruded  here — my  opinion,  as  an  American 
citizen,  that,  in  all  the  history  of  wanton  and  unnecessary 
shipwreck,  no  greater  scandal  to  the  science  of  navigation,  or 
to  the  system  of  marine  discipline,  ever  occurred  than  the 
loss  of  the  Arctic  and  her  three  hundred  passengers.  There 
is  but  one  thing  worse,  and  that  is  the  absence  of  all  laws 
of  the  United  States  either  to  prevent  the  recurrence  of 
such  a  catastrophe;  to  bring  to  justice  those,  if  there  are 
any  such,  wTho  are  responsible;  or,  at  least,  to  secure  a 
judicial  investigation  of  the  actual  facts. 

The  news  of  Mr.  Reed’s  death  was  received  with  deep  and 
intense  feeling  in  the  city  of  his  birth,  his  education,  and 
active  life.  Philadelphia  mourned  sincerely  for  her  son; 
and  no  tribute  to  his  memory,  no  graceful  expression  or  act 
of  sympathy  to  his  family,  was  withheld.  For  them  all 
there  are  no  adequate  words  of  gratitude. 

Returning  with  renewed  health  and  refreshed  spirits, 
with  a  capacity  not  only  for  intellectual  enjoyment,  but 
professional  usefulness,  enlarged  by  observation  of  other 
institutions  and  intercourse  with  the  wise  and  good  of  the 
Mother  country,  especially  those  who  had  made  education 
in  its  highest  branches  the  study  and  business  of  their 
lives,  Professor  Reed,  we  may  well  believe,  would  have 
resumed  his  American  duties  with  new  zeal  and  efficiency. 
Not  that  I  for  one  moment  imagine  he  had  become  in- 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTICE. 


xxiii 


fected  with  the  folly  of  fancying  that  a  system  of  foreign 
University  education,  in  any  of  its  forms,  could  or  ought 
to  be  transplanted  here;  but,  I  have  no  doubt,  that  obser¬ 
vation  of  thorough  training  and  accurate  scholarship,  the 
combination  of  moral  and  intellectual  discipline  such  as 
is  seen  abroad,  and  especially  in  Great  Britain,  would 
have  raised  still  higher  in  his  mind  the  aims  at  which 
American  students  and  American  institutions  of  learning 
should  be  directed. 

By  his  early  death — for  he  was  but  forty-six  years  of  age 
— all  these  hopes  were  doomed  to  disappointment.  The 
most  that  can  now  be  done  is  to  give  to  the  world  these 
fragmentary  memorials  of  his  studious  life;  and  for  them  I 
beg  an  indulgent  and  candid  criticism. 

William  B.  .Reed. 


Philadelphia,  Ftbrnary  1st,  1866. 


Jcnrg 


|§jutb. 


For  many  days  our  eyes  have  seaward  wander’d, 

As  if  to  search  the  Ocean  o’er  and  o’er, 

The  while  our  hearts  have  sorrowfully  ponder’d, 

“  Shall  we  behold  his  gentle  face  no  more  ?” 

The  silent  Sea  no  glad  response  returning, 

We  cry,  “  0  Sun  !  that  lightest  nature’s  face, 
Dost  thou  not  shine  upon  some  favour’d  place 
Where  he  is  tost  for  whom  our  souls  are  yearning?” 
Jtfo  answering  voice  allays  our  trembling  fears. 
And  long  anxiety  gives  way  to  tears. 

Beneath  the  waves  o’er  which  great  ships  go  flitting, 
He  waits  the  day  when  Ocean  yields  her  dead ; 
And  loving  sighs  and  bitter  drops  are  shed 
By  desolate  ones  around  his  hearthstone  sitting ; 
And,  while  they  mourn  the  gifted  and  the  good, 
The  general  grief  shows  holy  brotherhood. 


Thos.  Mac  Kell  ae. 


LECTURES 


ON 

ENGLISH  LITERATURE. 


LECTURE  I  — INTRODUCTORY  * 
principles  of  |Tifcraturc. 

Object,  to  assist  and  guide  students — Necessity  of  systematic  study — 
Judicious  criticism — True  aims  and  principles  of  literature — Choice 
of  books — Its  difficulties — Aim  of  this  course  of  lectures  to  remove 
them — All  books  not  literature — Accurate  definition  of  literature — 
Its  universality — Izaak  Walton — Addison — Charles  Lamb — Lord 
Bacon — Clarendon — Arnold — Spenser  and  Shakspeare — Southey 
and  Wordsworth — Belles-lettres  not  literature — Literature  not  an 
easy,  patrician  pleasure — Its  danger  as  to  practical  life — Its  influ¬ 
ence  on  character — De  Quincey’s  definition — Knowledge  and  Power 
— Influence  on  female  character — True  position  of  woman — Tenny¬ 
son’s  Princess — Novel-reading — Taste,  an  incorrect  term — Henry 
Taylor — Cowper — Miss  Wordsworth — Coleridge’s  philosophy. 

This  course  of  lectures  is  prepared  in  the  hope  of  doing 
some  service  in  connection  with  the  abundant  and  pre¬ 
cious  literature  which  lies  about  us  in  our  English  speech. 
The  plan  has  been,  in  some  measure,  prompted  to  my 
thoughts  by  applications  not  unfrequently  made  to  me  for 
advice  and  guidance  in  English  reading.  There  is  a  stage 

*  Delivered  in  the  Chapel  Hall  of  the  University,  January  3, 1850. 

3  25 


26 


LECTURE  FIRST. 


in  mental  culture  wlien  counsel  seems  to  be  intended  to 
take  the  place  of  exact  tuition,  and  when,  looking  alto¬ 
gether  beyond  the  period  and  the  province  of  what  is 
usually  called  “education,”  hints  and  suggestions,  criticism, 
literary  sympathies,  and  even  literary  antagonism,  become 
the  more  expanded  and  freer  discipline,  which  lasts  through 
life.  We  cannot  tell  how  much  of  good  we  may  thus 
do  to  one  another.  We  cannot  measure  the  value  of 
unstudied  and  almost  casual  influences.  A  random  word 
of  genuine  admiration  may  prove  a  guide  into  some  re¬ 
gion  of  literature  where  the  mind  shall  dwell  with  satis¬ 
faction  and  delight  for  years  to  come.  But  there  is  a 
demand  for  something  more  systematic  than  such  chance 
culture  as  I  have  alluded  to ;  and  the  mind  that  craves 
such  knowledge  of  the  literature  of  his  own  language  as 
will  make  it  part  of  his  thoughts  and  feelings,  has  a 
claim  for  guidance  and  counsel  upon  those  whose  duty  it 
is  to  fit  themselves  to  bestow  it.  It  is  a  claim  that  well 
may  win  a  quick  and  kindly  response,  for  the  sense  of  de¬ 
light  is  deepened  the  wider  it  is  spread,  or  when  it  opens 
the  souls  of  others  to  share  in  its  own  enjoyment. 

There  is  perhaps  no  one,  to  whom  the  intercourse  with 
books  has  grown  to  be  happy  and  habitual,  who  cannot 
recall  the  time  when,  needing  other  counsel  than  his  own 
mind  could  give,  he  felt  some  guidance  that  was  strength 
to  him.  One  can  recall,  in  after  years,  how  it  was,  that  an 
interest  was  first  awakened  in  some  book — how  sympathy 
with  an  author’s  mind  was  earliest  stirred — how  senti¬ 
ments  of  admiration  and  of  love  had  their  first  motion  in 
our  souls  toward  the  souls  of  the  great  poets.  We  may 
perhaps  remember,  too,  how  the  chastening  influence  of 
wise  and  genial  criticism  may  have  won  our  spirits  away 


PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERATURE. 


from  some  malignant  fascination  that  fastened  on  the 
unripe  intellect  only  to  abuse  it.  But  these  kindly  and 
healthful  agencies  exist  not  alone  in  the  memory — grate¬ 
fully  retained  as  benefits  received  in  the  period  of  in¬ 
tellectual  immaturity  and  inexperience.  Even  the  stu¬ 
dent  of  literature  whose  range  of  reading  is  most  com¬ 
prehensive — whose  habit  of  reading  is  most  confirmed 
— whose  culture  is  most  complete — will  tell  you  that 
it  is  still  in  his  daily  experience  to  find  his  choice  of 
books  not  an  arbitrary  and  lawless  choosing,  but  a  process 
open  to  the  influences  of  sound  and  congenial  criticism  ; 
he  will  tell  how,  by  such  influences,  the  activity  of  his 
thoughts  is  quickened — how  his  judgment  of  books  is 
often  the  joint  product  of  his  own  reflections,  and  the 
contact  of  the  wisdom  and  experience  of  others.  To  him 
who  wanders  at  will  through  the  vast  spaces  of  literature, 
with  the  sorry  guidance  of  good  intentions  and  inexpe¬ 
rience,  most  needful  are  the  helping  hand  and  the  pointing 
finger;  to  him  who  has  travelled  long  in  that  same  do¬ 
main,  pursuing  his  way  with  purposes  better  defined,  and 
who  has  gained  a  wider  prospect  and  farther-reaching 
views — even  by  him,  guidance,  if  not  so  needful,  still  may 
be  welcomed  from  some  fellow-traveller.  We  marvel 
often  at  finding  how,  under  the  light  of  wise  criticism, 
new  powers  and  new  beauties  are  made  visible  to  our 
minds  in  books  the  most  familiar. 

I  have  thus  alluded,  at  the  outset,  to  the  importance 
of  the  guidance  which  we  may  receive  in  our  intercourse 
with  the  world  of  books,  assuming  at  the  same  time  that 
there  is  no  call  upon  me  to  dwell  upon  the  value  of  that 
intercourse  itself.  I  take  for  granted  that  there  is  no 
one,  even  among  those  least  conversant  with  books,  win 


28 


LECTURE  FIRST. 


could  deny  the  value  of  an  intelligent  habit  of  reading 
T  need  not  occupy  a  moment  of  either  your  time  or  mine 
in  discussing  any  such  question  as  that.  It  is,  however 
proper  to  consider,  by  way  of  introduction,  some  of  those 
aim3  and  principles  of  literature  which,  though  least 
generally  appreciated,  give  it  its  highest  value — noticing, 
in  the  first  place,  some  of  the  difficulties  which  present 
themselves  to  a  mind  willing,  at  least,  if  not  zealous,  for 
such  culture. 

The  first  inquiry  that  presents  itself  is,  “  What  books 
does  it  behoove  me  to  know  ?”  The  docile  question  is, 
“  What  am  I  to  read  ?”  A  world  of  volumes  is  before 
us.  Poetry,  science,  history,  biography,  fiction,  the  mul¬ 
tiform  divisions  of  miscellaneous  literature,  each  and  all 
rise  up  in  their  vast  proportions  to  assert  their  claims. 
Secular  literature,  in  its  various  departments,  and  sacred 
literature,  casting  its  lights  into  the  life  beyond,  both  are 
at  hand  with  the  boundless  exuberance  of  their  stores. 
There  is  the  great  multitude  of  books  in  our  own  Eng¬ 
lish  words ;  there  is  the  host  as  large,  which,  in  the  kin¬ 
dred  dialects  of  the  North,  the  mind  of  Germany  has 
given  to  mankind.  The  literature  of  France  and  of 
Italy,  of  Spain,  the  South  of  Europe,  have  their  re¬ 
spective  claims  and  attractions.  Besides  the  modern 
mind,  there  is  all  that,  venerable  with  the  age  of  thou¬ 
sands  of  years,  has  come  down  to  us  from  Greece,  and 
Borne,  and  Palestine.  Then,  too,  in  the  whole  extent 
of  modern  literature,  there  is  the  daily  addition  of  the 
illimitable  issues  from  the  press  in  our  day  :  so  that 
when  the  student’s  thoughts  turn  to  the  accumulation 
of  the  printed  thoughts  of  past  ages,  and  to  the  never- 
ending  and  superadded  accumulation  which  is  poured 


PRINCI1  LES  OF  LITERATURE. 


29 


forth  from  day  to  day,  and  from  year  to  year  j  and  when 
these  vast  stores  are  seen  to  have  been  made  part  of  the 
•  scholarship  of  men  and  become  a  portion  of  their  intel¬ 
lectual  and  moral  nature,  one  is  appalled  at  the  first  ap¬ 
proach,  and  may  shrink  from  all  effort,  in  despondency  or 
hopelessness.  It  is  a  bewildering  thing  to  stand  in  the 
presence  of  a  vast  concourse  of  books — in  the  midst  of 
them,  but  feeble,  or  uncertain,  or  helpless  in  the  using  of 
them.  It  is  sad  to  know  that  in  each  one  of  these  vo¬ 
lumes  there  is  a  spiritual  power  which  might  stir  some 
kindred  power  in  our  own  souls,  which  might  guide,  and 
inform,  and  elevate ;  and  yet  that  it  should  be  a  power 
all  hidden  from  us.  It  is  oppressive  to  conceive  what  a 
world  of  human  thought  and  human  passion  is  dwelling 
on  the  silent  and  senseless  paper,  how  much  of  wisdom 
is  ready  to  make  its  entrance  into  the  mind  that  is  pre¬ 
pared  to  give  it  welcome.  It  is  mournful  to  think  that 
the  multitudinous  oracles  should  be  dumb  to  us. 

Furthermore,  there  is  this  difficulty,  that,  in  the 
multitude,  mingled  in  the  indiscriminate  throng,  are 
evil  books ;  or,  if  not  evil,  negative  and  worthless 
books.  Thus  the  companionship  is  not  only  difficult, 
but  it  may  be  dangerous ;  the  difficulty  of  making  wise 
and  happy  choice,  and  the  perilous  presence  of  what  is 
vicious  in  the  guise  of  books. 

Such  are  some  of  the  difficulties  which  beset  us,  when 
we  would  bring  the  influence  of  books  into  the  culture 
of  our  spiritual  nature.  These  lectures  are  intended  to 
present  some  thoughts  and  suggestions  with  a  view  ti 
the  surmounting  of  these  difficulties,  and  to  guidance 
into  the  department  of  English  literature.  I  propose 
now  to  consider  the  general  principles  of  literature,  and 
3* 

I 


so 


LECTURE  FIRST. 


in  the  next  lecture  to  trace  some  of  the  applications 
of  these  principles  in  the  formation  of  our  habits  of 
reading. 

The  discouraging  effect  which  is  produced  by  the  pre¬ 
sent  and  perpetually  increasing  multitude  of  books  is,  in 
some  degree,  lessened  by  the  thought  that  all  are  not 
literature.  A  vast  deal  of  paper  is  printed  and  folded 
and  shaped  into  the  outward  fashion  of  a  book,  that  never 
enters  into  the  literature  of  the  language.  What  (it  may 
be  asked)  is  Literature  ?  This  is  a  question  not  enough 
thought  of;  the  answer  to  it  is  important,  but  by  no 
means,  I  think,  difficult,  when  once  we  see  the  necessity 
of  making  the  discrimination.  Books  that  are  technical,, 
that  are  professional,  that  are  sectarian,  are  not  litera¬ 
ture  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term.  The  great  charac¬ 
teristic  of  literature,  its  essential  principle,  is  that  it  is 
addressed  to  man  as  man ;  it  speaks  to  our  common  hu¬ 
man  nature ;  it  deals  with  every  element  in  our  being 
that  makes  fellowship  between  man  and  man  through  all 
ages  of  man’s  history  and  through  all  the  habitable  re¬ 
gions  of  this  planet.  According  to  this  view,  literature 
excludes  from  its  appropriate  province  whatever  is  ad¬ 
dressed  to  men  as  they  are  parted  into  trades,  and  profes¬ 
sions,  and  sects — parted,  it  may  be,  in  the  division  for 
mutual  good ;  or,  it  may  be,  by  vicious  and  unchristian 
alienation.  It  is  the  relation  to  universal  humanity 
which  constitutes  literature;  it  matters  not  how  elevated, 
whether  it  be  history,  philosophy,  or  poetry,  in  its  highest 
aspirations;  or  how  humble,  it  may  be  the  simplest 
rhyme  or  story  that  is  level  to  the  unquestioning  faith 
and  untutored  intellect  of  childhood :  let  it  but  be  ad¬ 
dressed  to  our  common  human  nature,  it  is  literature  in 


PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERATURE. 


SI 


the  true  sense  of  the  term.  No  man  can  put  it  aside  and 
say,  “  It  concerns  not  me no  woman  can  put  it  aside  and 
say,  “It  concerns  not  me.”  The  books  which  do  not  enter 
into  the  literature  of  a  language  are  limited  in  their  uses,  for 
they  hold  their  intercourse  with  something  narrower  than 
human  nature,  while  that  which  is  literature  has  an  au¬ 
dience-chamber  capacious  as  the  soul  of  man — enduring 
as  his  immortality.  It  has  a  voice  whose  rhythm  is  in 
harmony  with  the  pulses  of  the  human  heart.  It  is  this, 
and  this  alone — this  universality — which  places  a  book  in 
a  Nation’s  literature.  It  matters  not  what  the  subject,  or 
what  the  mode  of  treating — be  there  but  one  touch  of 
nature  to  make  the  whole  world  kin — it  is  enough  to  lift 
it  into  the  region  of  literature.  A  London  linen-draper 
writes  a  treatise  on  Angling,  with  no  other  thought,  per¬ 
haps,  than  to  teach  an  angler’s  subtle  craft,  but  infusing 
into  his  art  so  much  of  Christian  meekness,  so  deep  a 
feeling  for  the  beauties  of  earth  and  sky,  such  rational 
loyalty  to  womanhood,  and  such  simple,  child-like  love  of 
song,  the  songs  of  bird,  of  milk-maid,  and  of  minstrel,  that 
this  little  book  on  fishing  has  earned  its  life  of  two  hundred 
years  already,  outliving  many  a  more  ambitious  book,  and 
Izaak  Walton  has  a  place  of  honour  amid  British  authors, 
and  has  the  love  even  of  those  who  have  learned  the 
poet-moralist’s  truer  wisdom, 

“Never  to  blend  our  pleasure  or  our  pride 
With  sorrow  of  the  meanest  thing  that  feels.”'* 

I  speak  of  this  instance  to  show  how  a  subject  which  is 
indifferent  to  many,  and  even  repulsive  to  not  a  few,  may 
be  redeemed  and  animated  by  the  author’s  true  human- 


*  Wordsworth's  Poems,  Hart  Leap  Well.  Collective  edition,  p.  If  2. 


LECTURE  FIRST. 


lieartcdness.  How  much  deeper  then  must  be  the  inte¬ 
rest  of  all  the  subjects,  in  the  vast  variety,  with  which 
there  is  universal  sympathy  !  How  much  mightier  must 
be  the  agency  of  literature  as  it  passes  beyond  and  above 
that  which  is  local  and  limited,  temporary  or  conventional, 
into  the  region  of  the  spiritual  and  the  eternal,  when  it 
enters  into  the  very  soul  of  man,  admonishing  it  of  its 
weakness,  and  of  its  strength,  and  of  its  immortality  ! 

Now,  whether  we  look  at  the  simpler  and  humbler  aims 
of  literature — healthful,  innocent  recreation — the  recupe¬ 
rative  influences  which  blend  so  happily  with  the  severer 
functions  of  life,  or  whether  we  contemplate  its  elevating 
and  chastening  power  on  the  minds  of  men,  we  cannot 
mistake  that  its  just  and  great  attribute  is  its  univer¬ 
sality.  It  speaks  to  every  ear  that  is  not  deaf  to  it.  It 
asks  admission  into  every  heart.  The  books  that  are  not 
literature  have  the  professional,  the  technical,  but  not 
the  human  stamp :  some,  the  law-books  for  instance,  put 
on  an  outward  garb  of  their  own,  as  if  to  warn  all  but 
one  class  of  readers  away  from  them.  But  observe  the 
books  which  are  Literature,  how  they  speak  to  a  peo¬ 
ple — to  a  whole  nation — to  scattered  nations  over  the 
earth  linked  together  by  community  of  speech,  above  all 
such  glorious  community  as  our  English  speech ;  nay, 
more,  so  far  as  the  Babel  barriers  which  make  the  parti¬ 
tions  of  the  earth  are  overleaped,  a  literature  addresses 
itself  to  all  mankind.  This  is  true  of  even  the  light  and 
more  perishable  literature,  recreating  and  gladdening  the 
hearts  of  men,  if  but  for  a  season ;  and  it  is  more  last¬ 
ingly  true  of  the  higher  literature — for  instance,  our 
abundant  and  varied  English  essay-literature,  philosophy, 
history  with  all  its  kindred  themes,  and  poetry.  Is  it 


PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERATURE. 


33 


not  for  ivery  fellow-being  speaking  the  English  tongue, 
that  A  Idison  and  Charles  Lamb,  the  “  Spectator”  and 
“Elk.,”  have  written?  Is  it  not  for  every  one  who  is 
willing  to  be  lifted  up  to  the  high  places  of  philosophy, 
that  Bacon’s  words  of  wisdom  were  recorded  ?  It  is  for 
all,  that  Clarendon’s  pictured  page  displays  its  great  gal¬ 
lery  of  historic  portraits  :  it  is  for  all,  that  Arnold,  in  our 
own  day,  has  shown  how  a  mighty  historian  can  throw  a 
sacred  light  over  profane  history,  by  tracing  God’s  provi¬ 
dence  iu  the  annals  of  a  pagan  people.  It  is  every 
man  and  every  woman  whom  Spenser  leads  into  the 
Bunny  and  the  shadowy  spaces  of  his  marvellous  allegory  ; 
and  Shakspeare  into  that  more  wondrous  region,  the  soul 
of  man,  with  its  depths  of  goodness  and  of  evil,  brighter 
and  darker  than  aught  in  the  region  of  romance.  In  our 
own  times,  it  was  for  all  his  race  that  Byron  gave  utter¬ 
ance  to  his  passionate  poetry :  it  was  for  all  Christian 
readers  that  Southey,  in  his  “  Eastern  Epics,”  inter¬ 
wove,  with  the  heathen  fable,  bright  threads  of  the  glory 
of  Christian  faith;  and  it  is  for  every  one  who  takes 
thought  of  the  deep  things  of  his  nature,  the  mysteries 
of  his  being,  memories  of  early  innocence  and  yearnings 
for  eternity,  that  Wordsworth  struck  his  lofty  lyric,  the 
most  sublime  ode  in  this  and,  perhaps,  any  language,  on 
the  birth — the  life — the  undying  destiny  of  the  soul  of 
man. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  this  prime  quality  of  literature,  its 
universality,  because,  simple  as  it  is,  it  is  practically  lost 
sight  of,  in  the  propensity  to  identify  all  things  in  the  shape 
)f  books  with  literature.  Whatever  is  meant  to  minis¬ 
ter  to  our  universal  human  nature,  either  in  the  nature 
)f  the  subject  or  the  handling  of  it,  takes  its  place,  in 


S4 


LECTURE  FIRST. 


some  range  or  other  of  literature :  and  nothing  else  is 
so  entitled.  And  here  let  me  step  aside  for  a  moment  to 
notice  an  unworthy  and  very  inadequate  term,  which,  in 
its  day  has  had  some  currency  as  a  substitute  for  the  term 
“  literature.”  I  refer  to  that  vapid,  half-naturalized  term 
“  belles-lettres which  was  more  in  vogue  formerly  than 
now,  getting  currency,  I  suppose,  during  a  period  of 
shallow  criticism  not  very  remote  from  our  day,  when 
Doctor  Blair  and  Lord  Ivames  were  great  authorities.  I 
have  never  met  with  anybody  who  could  tell  me  what 
precise  meaning  it  is  meant  to  convey.  The  term  had  an 
appropriateness  for  much  in  the  literature  of  France,  but 
translate  the  words  and  transfer  them  to  English  literature, 
and  how  inane  is  such  a  title,  so  applied  !  Doctor  Johnson 
has  given  it  a  place  in  the  English  vocabulary,  and  tells 
us  it  means  “  polite  literature,”  which  does  not  help  the 
matter  much.  I  should  not  have  thought  it  worth  while 
to  stop  to  comment  on  this  term,  if  I  did  not  believe  it  to 
be  not  only  vague  and  inadequate,  but  also  mischievous ; 
and  it  is  well  known  what  power  of  mischief  there  may  be 
in  a  word.  “Belles-lettres” — fine  letters — polite  litera¬ 
ture — what  thought  do  these  terms  convey  but  of  luxuries 
of  the  mind,  a  refined  amusement,  but  no  more  than 
amusement,  confectionaries  (as  it  were)  of  the  mind, 
rather  than  needful,  solid,  healthy,  life-sustaining  food. 
If  the  term  “  belles-lettres”  excludes  the  weighty  and 
sublime  productions  of  the  mind,  then  is  it  a  miserable 
substitute  for  what  should  be  comprehended  in  such  a 
term  as  “ literature if  it  includes  them,  then  is  it  a  piti¬ 
fully  inapposite  title.  Now  the  mischief  is  just  here  :  this 
dainty,  feeble  term  leads  people  to  suppose  that  literature 
is  an  easy,  indolent  cultivation,  a  sort  of  passive,  patrician 


PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERATURE. 


3  5 


pleasure,  instead  of  demanding  dutiful  and  studious  and 
strenuous  energy.  It  lowers  the  great  works  of  genius,  as 
if  they  could  be  approached  indolently,  thoughtlessly,  and 
without  preparatory  discipline.  When  the  term  was  most 
in  use,  it  was  meant  for  that  which  is  essential  literature, 
and  yet  how  meanly  inadequate  and  injurious  is  it  new  in 
the  department  of  poetry,  if  applied  to  the  Fairy  Queen, 
Paradise  Lost,  The  Excursion!  We  might  call  the 
fanciful  things  in  The  Rape  of  the  Lock,  creations;  but 
who  will  so  speak  of  Milton’s  ruined  Archangel,  or  Lear, 
or  Hamlet ?  It  is  to  be  noticed  that  as  the  term  “  belles- 
lettres'’  was  introduced  in  a  feeble  age  of  the  British 
mind,  so  it  has  been  in  a  great  measure  cast  out  by  the 
deeper  philosophy  of  criticism  which  has  arisen  in  this 
century. 

I  have  adverted  to  this  subject,  because  the  term  de¬ 
tracts  from  that  which  is  the  prime  characteristic  of  lite¬ 
rature — its  universality — its  appeal  to  man  as  man.  In 
this  simple,  elementary  principle,  we  may  unfold  some  of 
the  manifold  powers  and  uses  of  a  literature :  it  would  not 
thus  address  itself  to  all  human  beings,  whose  minds  can 
be  open  to  it,  unless  it  had  some  great  purpose — some 
worthier  end  than  pastime.  It  is  one  of  the  countless  and 
varied  influences  under  which  man’s  spiritual  being  passes 
through  this  mortal  life.  It  is  one  agency  amid  many, 
only  one  among  many,  for  we  must  not  exaggerate  its 
importance.  We  are  dwelling  amid  the  things  of  sight 
and  sound  in  this  inanimate  world;  and  that  has  its  in¬ 
fluences  on  the  soul  of  man  :  we  are  dwelling  in  the  social 
world  of  kindred  human  beings,  giving  and  receiving  from 
one  another  impressions  to  last,  it  may  be,  through  eternity  • 
we  are  living  amid  the  spiritual  agencies  which  are  vouch- 


86 


LECTURE  FIRST. 


safed  to  redeemed  man  :  and  our  life  is  also  in  the  world 
of  hooks. 

And  books,  wo  know, 

Are  a  substantial  world,  both  pure  and  good : 

Round  these,  with  tendrils  strong  as  flesh  and  blood, 

Our  pastime  and  our  happiness  will  grow.* 

I  have  spoken  of  literature  as  only  one  of  the  powers 
from  which  the  mind  of  man  is  to  receive  culture  and 
discipline,  for  although  the  common  danger  lies  in  another 
direction,  it  may  encroach  upon  other  powers  to  our 
grievous  spiritual  injury.  It  may  win  us  too  much  away 
from  the  discipline  of  actual  life  into  an  intellectual  luxuri¬ 
ousness  :  it  may  withdraw  us  too  much  from  all  of  earth 
and  sky  that  for  wise  purposes  is  sensible  to  us,  and  we 
may  thus  lose  that  contemplative  spirit,  which  can  “  find 
tongues  in  trees,  books  in  the  running  brooks,  sermons  in 
stones,  and  good  in  every  thing.”  We  must  not  be  un¬ 
mindful  how  exquisitely  the  individual  man  and  the  ex¬ 
ternal  world  are  fitted  to  each  other,  so  that  it  is  scarce  a 
poetic  exaggeration,  that 

One  impulse  from  a  vernal  wood 
May  teach  you  more  of  man, 

Of  moral  evil  and  of  good, 

Than  all  the  sages  can.f 

My  present  purpose  is  to  consider  this  one  agency — lite¬ 
rature — as  a  means  of  culture  of  character,  manly  and 
womanly;  but,  at  the  same  time,  let  it  be  borne  in  mind 
that  nothing  conduces  more  to  the  well-being  and  strength 
of  the  soul  than  to  keep  it  open  to  all  the  healthful  in¬ 
fluences  which  are  provided  for  it,  and  to  hold  them  all 


*  Wordsworth.  Sonnet,  “  Personal  Talk,”  p.  186. 
f  Wordsworth.  “  The  Tables  Turned,”  p.  337. 


PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERATURE. 


37 


in  true  adjustment.  There  is  a  time  for  the  eye  to  dwell 
on  the  printed  page,  but  there  is  also  a  time  to  gaze  “on 
earth,  air,  ocean,  and  the  starry  sky;”  there  is  a  time  to 
look  into  the  faces  of  our  fellow-beings,  the  bright  and 
laughing  face,  or  the  sad  and  sorrowing  one ;  there  is  a 
time  too  for  silent,  solitary,  spiritual  looking  inward  into 
the  soul  itself;  and  thus  by  no  one  function,  but  by  many, 
does  man  build  up  his  moral  being.  Such  is  education, 
in  its  large  and  true  significancy.  Looking  to  literature 
as  our  present  subject,  and  having  ascertained  that  its 
prime  quality  is  its  power  of  addressing  itself  to  man  as 
man,  let  us  now  see  for  what  purpose  it  so  deals  with  our 
common  humanity,  that  we  may  have  a  principle  to 
guide  us  in  our  choice  of  books.  One  of  the  most  acute 
and  logical  minds  of  our  time,  that  of  him  who  has  coupled 
his  name  with  a  morbid  and  ill-omened  title — I  refer  to 
Mr.  De  Quincey,  the  English  opium-eater — has  drawn  a 
distinction  between  two  species  of  literature.  “  There  is,” 
he  says,  “first,  the  literature  of  knowledge,  and,  secondly,  the 
literature  of  power.  The  function  of  the  first  is  to  teach; 
the  function  of  the  second  is  to  move.  .  .  .  The  very 
highest  work  that  has  ever  existed  in  the  literature  of 
knowledge  is  but  a  provisional  work ;  a  book  upon  trial 
and  sufferance.  Let  its  teaching  be  even  partially  revised, 
let  it  be  but  expanded,  nay,  even  let  its  teaching  be  but 
placed  in  a  better  order,  and  instantly  it  is  superseded. 
Whereas  the  feeblest  work  in  the  literature  of  power, 
surviving  at  all,  survives  as  finished  and  unalterable  among 
men.  For  instance,  the  Principia  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton 
was  a  book  militant  on  earth  from  the  first.  In  all  stages 
of  its  progress  it  would  have  to  fight  for  its  existence :  first 

as  regards  absolute  truth  ;  secondly,  when  that  combai  is 
C  i 


38 


LECTURE  FIRST. 


over,  as  regards  its  form  or  mode  of  presenting  the  truth 
And  as  soon  as  a  La  Place  or  anybody  else  builds  bigliei 
upon  the  foundations  laid  by  this  book,  effectually  he 
throws  it  out  of  the  sunshine  into  decay  and  darkness ;  by 
weapons  even  from  this  book  he  superannuates  and  de¬ 
stroys  it,  so  that  soon  the  name  of  Newton  remains  as  a 
mere  nominis  umbra,  but  his  book,  as  a  living  power,  has 
transmigrated  into  other  forms.  Now,  on  the  contrary, 
the  Iliad,  the  Prometheus  of  iEschylus,  the  Othello  or 
King  Lear,  the  Hamlet  or  Macbeth,  and  the  Paradise 
Lost  are  not  militant,  but  triumphant  power  as  long  as  the 
languages  exist  in  which  they  speak  or  can  be  taught  to 
speak.  They  never  can  transmigrate  into  new  incarnations. 

.  .  .  All  the  literature  of  knowledge  builds  only  ground- 
nests,  that  are  swept  away  by  floods,  or  confounded  by  the 
plough  but  the  literature  of  power  builds  nests  in  aerial 
altitudes,  of  temples  sacred  from  violation,  or  of  forests  in¬ 
accessible  to  fraud.  This  is  a  great  prerogative  of  the 
power-literature.  .  .  .  The  7cnowIedge-l\tera,ture,  like  the 
fashion  of  this  world,  passeth  away.  .  .  .  Put  all  litera¬ 
ture,  properly  so  called,  ...  for  the  very  same  reason  that 
it  is  so  much  more  durable  than  the  literature  of  know¬ 
ledge  is  .  .  .  more  intense  and  electrically  searching  in 
its  impressions.  The  directions  in  which  the  tragedy  of 
this  planet  has  trained  our  human  feelings  to  play,  and 
the  combinations  into  which  the  power  of  this  planet  has 
thrown  our  human  passions  of  love  and  hatred,  of  ad¬ 
miration  and  contempt,  exercises  a  power  bad  or  good 
over  human  life  that  cannot  be  contemplated  when  seen 
stretching  through  many  generations,  without  a  sentiment 
allied  to  awe.  And  of  this  let  every  one  be  assured,  that 
he  owes  to  the  impassioned  books  which  he  has  read  many 


PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERATURE. 


39 


a  thousand  more  of  emotions  than  he  can  consciously  trace 
back  to  them.  Dim  by  their  origination,  these  emotions 
yet  arise  in  him,  and  mould  him  through  life  like  the  for¬ 
gotten  incidents  of  childhood.”* 

The  distinction  thus  drawn  between  the  literature  of 
knowledge  and  the  literature  of  power  is,  however,  of  un¬ 
certain  application  to  many  books  in  which,  while  the  chief 
object  is  to  impart  information  of  some  kind,  power  is 
given  also ;  but  this  is  certain  that  in  all  literature  of  a 
high  order — a  nation’s  purest  literature,  it  is  'power  that  is 
given,  and  not  knowledge.  But  what,  it  may  be  asked,  is 
this  Power  which  literature  creates  in  the  spirits  of  men? 
what  is  this  soul-engendered  energy  ?  The  knowledge- 
literature  is  measurable,  and  we  can  judge  of  the  utility 
of  this  or  that  branch  of  it,  its  aptness  to  this  or  that 
man,  this  or  that  woman :  but  the  power-literature  is  im¬ 
measurable,  because  it  partakes  of  the  infinite,  and  pass¬ 
ing  through  and  beyond  the  mere  intellect,  it  dwells  in  the 
deep  places  of  the  soul.  The  common  products  of  educa¬ 
tion  are  tangible  and  temporal,  but  there  is  a  higher  edu¬ 
cation  that  lifts  you  into  the  region  of  things  eternal, 
“Truths  that  wake  to  perish  never.”  There  is  an  educa¬ 
tion  which  deals  with  acquirements,  accomplishments, 
learning  it  may  be,  and,  in  all  this,  there  may  be  vast  variety 
and  a  huge  profit,  but  there  will  be  a  transitoriness  and 
withal  weariness  and  vexation  of  spirit  in  it.  There  is  a 
higher  education,  which  is  akin  to  religion,  for  it  is  a 
ministry  of  the  soul,  and  deals  not  so  much  with  what  wo 
know  as  with  what  we  are,  what  we  can  do  and  what  we  can 
suffer,  and  what  we  may  become  here  and  hereafter. 


*  Essay  on  Pope,  pp.  149,  152.  American  edition. 


*0 


LECTURE  FIRST. 


Thus  it  is  that  there  are  books  of  knowledge,  and  of 
power — books  that  make  us  more  knowing,  and  books 
that  make  us  wiser,  and,  in  that  wisdom,  better. 

This  great  distinctive  principle  gives  good  guidance 
to  us,  and  it  may  be  made  most  practical  if  a  little 
thoughtful  discrimination  be  bestowed  in  our  inter¬ 
course  with  books;  instead  of  apathy  on  the  one  hand, 
or  on  the  other  the  voracious  appetite  that  takes  no 
heed  of  the  various  uses  of  books.  A  book  may  be  read 
merely  to  talk  about,  and  that  is  perhaps  the  meanest 
thing  to  read  it  for :  it  may  be  rend  for  amusement,  and 
that  may  be  seasonable  and  salutary ;  but  it  also  may  be 
read  for  happiness,  rather  than  for  mere  pleasure,  for  a 
perpetual  rather  than  a  passing  joy  :  it  may  give  health  of 
mind,  vigour,  and  vision  :  the  heart  may  beat  all  the  truer 
for  it;  the  mind’s  eye  may  see  all  the  clearer  for  it.  As 
you  close  a  book,  ask  yourself  what  it  has  done  for  you ;  and 
better,  perhaps,  than  criticism  or  any  outer  counsel,  shall 
the  silent  communings  of  your  heart  tell  you  whether  the 
oracle  was  a  gO'xl  or  an  evil  one. 

I  have  thus  sought  to  show  how,  amid  the  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  books  which  are  accumulating  in  the  wTorld, 
we  may  select  as  “  literature”  those  which  are  character¬ 
ized  by  the  universality  of  being  addressed  to  man  as  man ; 
and  how,  in  the  next  place,  we  may  contract  it  to  a  more 
essential  literature,  in  the  books  which  strengthen  rather 
than  store  the  mind— giving  it  power  rather  than  apparel; 
and  then,  how  we  may  raise  it  to  a  purer  and  higher  lite¬ 
rature,  in  the  books  which,  by  calling  forth  the  good  ele¬ 
ments  in  our  being  and  by  chastening  the  evil  ones,  give 
spiritual  health,  and  innocence,  and  moral  power.  Let 
these  principles  be  taken  to  heart,  and  let  there  be  some 


PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERATURE. 


41 


thoughtful  and  genial  intercourse  with  books,  and  there 
comes  oy  degrees  what  seems  almost  an  instinct  to  guide 
us  in  our  companionship  with  them — leading  to  the  good 
and  truthful,  and  turning  us  away  from  the  foolish,  the 
false,  and  the  pernicious.  Even  moderate  experience,  let 
it  only  be  docile,  thoughtful,  and  affectionate,  will  win  for 
you  an  almost  intuitive  sense  in  judging  what  books  you 
may  take  to  your  heart  as  friends,  and  friends  for  life : 
it  will  give  also  that  confidence,  most  valuable  in  the  days 
of  multitudinous  publications,  the  confidence  in  deter¬ 
mining  what  books,  and  they  are  very  many,  it  is  good 
to  be  immutably  ignorant  of. 

Reflecting  on  what  a  book  can  do  and  ought  to  do 
for  you — how  it  may  act  on  your  mind,  and  your  mind 
react  on  it — and  thus  holding  communion,  you  can 
travel  through  a  wilderness  of  volumes  onward,  onward 
through  time,  wisely  and  happily,  and  with  perfect 
vision  of  your  way,  as  the  woodman  sees  a  path  in  the 
forest — a  path  to  his  home,  while  the  wanderer,  whether 
standing  or  staggering,  is  lost  in  blind  ’and  blank 
bewilderment. 

Literature,  according  to  this  conception  of  it,  is  to  be 
employed  for  culture  of  character — manly  character  and 
womanly  character.  I  speak  of  them  separately,  not  be¬ 
cause  it  is  necessary  so  to  do  with  reference  to  that  which 
is  essential  literature,  but  because  attention  has  lately 
been  drawn  to  the  subject  of  the  social  position  of  woman 
and  there  is  heard  at  least  a  sound  of  conflicting  opinions 
and  opposing  theories.  It  is  a  discussion  into  which  1 
mean  not  to  enter,  but  only  to  touch  upon  in  its  connection 
with  my  present  subject.  Let  me  say,  in  the  first  place, 
that  I  question  whether  it  is  proper,  or  even  practicable, 
4* 


42 


LECTURE  FIRST. 


so  to  detach  womanhood  from  our  common  human  nature 
as  to  make  it  a  topic  of  distinct  disquisition ;  it  seems  to 
me  a  little  too  much  like  a  naturalist’s  study  of  some  sub¬ 
ject  in  zoology — the  form  and  habits  of  some  other  species 
of  created  things.  Again,  as  to  all  controversies  respect¬ 
ing  the  equality  of  the  sexes,  or  relative  superiority  or 
inferiority,  I  have  only  to  say,  that  to  me  they  are  simply 
odious, — wrong,  I  believe, — in  faith,  in  philosophy,  and 
in  feeling.  Why  should  our  minds  be  perplexed  with 
modern  speculations  on  this  subject,  when  we  have  in¬ 
spired  teaching,  which,  in  a  few  words,  if  we  will  but 
look  at  them,  will  show  us  the  whole  truth  :  “  And  the 
Lord  God  said,  It  is  not  good  that  the  man  should  be 
alone;  I  will  make  him  an  helpmeet  for  him.”  “God 
doth  not  say,”  observes  an  old  English  divine,  “it  is  not 
good  for  man  to  be  alone,”  “  he  doth  not  say  it  is  not 
good  for  this  or  that  particular  man  to  be  alone ;  but  it  is 
not  good  in  the  general,  for  the  whole  frame  of  the  world, 
that  man  should  be  alone.”*  Thus  we  find  the  creation 
of  woman,  and  that  providential  law  which  preserves  the 
equal  numbers  of  the  sexes,  resting  on  the  divinely- 
instituted  principle  of  companionship,  not  alone  of  mar¬ 
riage,  not  alone  of  mother  and  child,  but  the  manifold 
companionship  of  woman,  single  or  married,  companion¬ 
ship  involving,  of  necessity,  reciprocal  dependence,  but 
having  nothing  to  do  with  equality  or  superiority  or  in¬ 
feriority  on  one  side  or  the  other.  There  is  a  law  of 
companionship  far  deeper  than  that  of  uniformity,  or 
equality,  or  similarity,  the  law  which  reconciles  simili¬ 
tude  ana  dissimilitude,  the  harmony  of  contrast,  in  which 


*  Donne,  vol.  iv.  p.  19. 


PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERATURE. 


43 


what  is  wanting  on  the  one  side  finds  its  complement  on 
the  other,  for, 

Heart  with  heart  and  mind  with  mind, 

Where  the  main  fibres  are  entwined, 

Through  Nature’s  skill, 

May  even  by  contraries  be  joined 
More  closely  stilL* 

Such  was  the  exquisite  companionship  of  the  sexes  as 
they  were  represented  in  our  first  parents,  and  so,  how¬ 
ever  since  disturbed,  it  remains  as  the  ideal  for  all  the 
generations  of  men  and  women.  There  was  adduced  another 
law,  when  the  words  were  pronounced  to  the  woman. 
“  Thy  desire  shall  be  to  thy  husband,  and  he  shall  rule 
over  thee ;”  and  thus  dominion  was  mingled  with  com¬ 
panionship — dominion  of  one  sex  over  the  other,  which 
no  sophistry  can  evade,  for  it  is  divine  and  to  endure 
with  the  earth  and  the  race.  Having;  its  origan  in  evil,  it 
grows  with  evil,  and  the  woman  sinks  down  into  the 
slave,  and  the  man  into  her  more  imbruted  tyrant;  but 
goodness  can  still  find  the  beauty  of  the  primeval  law  of 
companionship  undefaced  by  the  element  of  dominion; 
for  the  penalty  of  dominion  may,  like  the  curse  of  labour, 
be  converted  into  a  blessing.  As  willing,  dutiful  labour 
brings  gladness  more  than  sorrow  with  it,  so  shall  the 
fulfilment  of  the  law  of  obedience  win  a  glory  of  its  own, 
brighter  than  any  achievement  of  power.  It  is  not  by 
clamouring  for  rights,  it  is  not  by  restless  discontent, 
but  it  is  by  tranquil  working  out  of  the  heaven-imposed 
law  of  obedience,  that  woman’s  weakness  is  transmuted 
into  strength — a  moral,  spiritual  power  which  man  shall 
do  homage  to.  Ambition,  pride,  wilfulness,  or  any 


*  Wordsworth.  The  Grave  of  Burns. 


44 


LECTURE  FIRST. 


earthly  passion  will  but  distort  her  being;  she  struggle 
all  in  vain  against  a  divine  appointment,  and  sinks  into 
more  woful  servitude,  and  the  primeval  curse  weighs  a 
thousand  fold  upon  her,  and  the  primeval  companionship 
perishes.  But  bowing  beneath  that  law  which  sounded 
through  the  darkening  Paradise,  she  wins  for  her  dower 
the  only  freedom  that  is  worthy  of  woman — the  moral 
liberty  which  God  bestows  upon  the  faithful  and  obedient 
spirit.  It  is  from  the  soil  of  meekness  that  the  true  strength 
of  womanhood  grows,  and  it  is  because  it  has  its  root  in 
such  a  soil  that  it  has  a  growth  so  majestic,  showering 
its  blossoms  and  its  fruits  upon  the  world.  Her  influence 
follows  man  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  and  the  sphere 
of  it  is  the  whole  region  of  humanity.  We  marvel  at  the 
might  of  it,  because  its  tranquil  triumphs  are  so  placid 
and  so  noiseless,  and  penetrating  into  the  deep  places  of 
our  nature.  It  was  the  sun  and  the  wind  that  in  the 
fable  strove  for  the  mastery,  and  the  strife  was  for  a 
traveller’s  cloak;  the  quiet  moon  had  naught  to  do  with 
such  fierce  rivalry  of  the  burning  or  the  blast,  but  as  in 
her  tranquil  orbit  she  journeys  round  the  earth,  silently 
sways  the  tides  of  the  ocean. 

There  probably  can  be  found  no  better  test  of  civiliza¬ 
tion  than  the  prevailing  tone  of  feeling  and  opinion  with 
regard  to  womanhood,  and  the  recognition  of  woman’s 
influences  and  social  position.  There  may  be  the  rude 
use  of  woman  in  barbaric  life,  or  the  frivolous  uses  of  an 
over-civilized  society.  There  may  be  the  high-wrought 
adulation  of  an  age  of  chivalry,  which,  so  far  as  it  is 
a  sentiment  of  idolatry,  is  at  once  false  and  pernicious ; 
or  there  may  be  that  wise  and  well-adjusted  sense  of 
affectionate  reverence  of  womanhood,  which  is  thoughtful 


PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERATURE. 


4S 

of  the  vast  variety  of  human  companionship — matronly, 
maidenly,  sisterly,  daughterly.  In  woman,  there  may  be 
a  true  sense  of  sex,  its  duties  and  its  claims,  meekness 
with  its  hidden  heroism  ;  or  there  may  be  the  unfeminine 
temper,  fit  to  be  rebuked  by  the  Desdemona  model.* 
Such  a  rebuke  may  be  apposite  where  female  character 
disfigures  itself  by  obtrusiveness  and  self-sufficiency  and 
pedantry.  But,  as  far  as  my  observation  goes,  that  is  not 
the  state  of  society  here  ;  on  the  contrary,  there  is  needed 
an  effort  much  more  difficult  than  repressing  the  fro  ward ; 
and  that  is,  to  lift  modest,  intelligent,  sensitive  woman¬ 
hood  above  the  dread  of  the  ridicule  of  pedantry.  Manly 
culture  would  gain  by  it  as  well  as  womanly.  I  heard 
lately  from  a  woman’s  lips  one  of  the  finest  pieces  of 
Shakspeare  criticism  I  ever  met  with  ;  admirable  in 
imagination  and  in  the  true  philosophy  of  criticism,  and 
yet  uttered  in  conversation  iu  the  easy,  natural  inter¬ 
course  of  society. f  Such  should  be  the  culture  of  woman, 
and  such  the  tone  of  society,  that  these  flue  processes  of 
womanly  thought  and  feeling  may  mingle  naturally  with 
men’s  judgments. 

There  may  be  a  social  condition  in  which  womanly 


*  With  regard  to  the  Desdemona  model,  it  must  also  be  remem¬ 
bered  that  it  is  not  the  only  model  of  womanly  character  which  the 
poet  has  left  to  the  world;  on  the  contrary,  he  has  given  others  of 
equal  worth  and  beauty,  varied  to  the  infinite  variety  of  womanly 
duty.  Indeed,  what  a  woman  ought  to  do  often  depends  upon  what 
man  does,  and  very  often,  too,  on  what  be  leaves  undone  :  so  that, 
while  it  may  be  her  duty  to  bow  “like  the  gentle  lady  married  to  the 
Moor,’’  man’s  wrongs  or  his  omissions  may  call  her  to  other  duties- - 
going  forth,  like  Imogen,  for  womanly  well-doing  in  the  open  and 
rude  places  of  the  earth.  II.  It. 

f  Mrs.  Kemble. 


46 


LECTURE  FIRST. 


culture  is  in  advance  of  the  manly,  and  then  the  woman 
is  placed  in  the  sad  dilemma  of  either  lowering  the  tone  of 
her  own  thoughts,  or  of  raising  the  minds  of  men  and 
their  habits  of  thought — a  task  that  demands  all  of  wo¬ 
manly  sagacity  and  gentleness,  and  is  a  trial  to  womanly 
modesty.  The  companionship  of  the  sexes  is  important  in 
the  culture  of  each,  and  by  such  communion  the  marvel¬ 
lous  harmony  of  diverse  qualities  is  made  more  perfect  for 
the  strength  and  beauty  of  their  common  humanity.  One 
of  the  latest  strains  of  English  poetry  has  well  proclaimed 

“  The  woman’s  cause  is  man’s  :  they  rise  or  sink 
Together,  dwarf'd  or  godlike,  bond  or  free  : 

vjr  ijc 

(She  must)  “Live,  and  learn,  and  be 
All  that  not  harms  distinctive  womanhood, 

For  woman  is  not  undevelopt  man, 

But  diverse  :  could  we  make  her  as  the  man, 

Sweet  love  were  slain,  whose  dearest  bond  is  this 
Not  like  to  thee,  but  like  in  difference  : 

Tet  in  the  long  years  liker  must  they  grow, 

The  man  be  more  of  woman,  she  of  man  ; 

He  gain  in  sweetness  and  in  moral  height, 

Nor  lose  the  wrestling  thews  that  throw  the  world; 

She  mental  breadth,  nor  fail  in  childward  care ; 

More  as  the  double-natured  poet  each  : 

Till  at  the  last  she  set  herself  to  man 
Like  perfect  music  unto  noble  words  ; 

And  so  these  twain,  upon  the  skirts  of  Time, 

Sit  side  by  side,  full  summ’d  in  all  their  powers, 

Dispensing  harvest; 

Self-reverent  each,  and  reverencing  each. 

Distinct  in  individualties  ; 

But  like  each  other,  even  as  those  who  love : 

Then  comes  the  statelier  Eden  back  to  men.”5* 


*  I  quote  from  that  late  poem  of  Mr.  Tennyson’s,  “  The  Princess," 
Which  has  made  a  deep  impression  on  the  thoughtful  criticism  of  his 


PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERATURE. 


4 1 


I  have  been  tempted  further  into  this  subject  than  I 
meant  to  be,  but  what  I  have  said  respecting  the  com¬ 
panionship  of  the  sexes  can  have  no  better  illustration 
than  in  the  study  of  literature.  All  that  is  essential  lite¬ 
rature  belongs  alike  to  mind  of  woman  and  of  man;  it 
demands  the  same  kind  of  culture  from  each,  and  most 
salutary  may  the  companionship  of  mind  be  found,  giving 
reciprocal  help  by  the  diversity  of  their  power.  Let  us 
see  how  this  will  be.  In  the  first  place,  a  good  habit  of 
reading,  whether  in  man  or  woman,  may  be  described  as 
the  combination  of  passive  recipiency  from  the  book  and 
the  mind’s  reaction  upon  it :  this  equipoise  is  true  culture. 
But,  in  a  great  deal  of  reading,  the  passiveness  of  im¬ 
pression  is  well  nigh  all,  for  it  is  luxurious  indolence,  and 
the  reactive  process  is  neglected.  With  the  habitual 

countrymen,  and  which  has  been  described  as  having  for  its  leading 
purpose  the  exhibiting  the  true  idea  and  dignity  of  womanhood.  I 
will  not  part  from  it  without  citing  that  other  fine  tribute  to  womanly 
induence — a  manly  acknowledgment  full  of  deep  thought  and  of  true 
feeling,  when  he  speaks  of 

- “  One 

Not  learned,  save  in  gracious  household  ways, 

Not  perfect,  nay,  but  full  of  tender  wants; 

No  angel,  but  a  dearer  being  all  dipt 
In  angel  instincts,  breathing  paradise, 

Interpreter  between  the  gods  and  men, 

Who  look’d  all  native  to  her  place,  and  yet 
On  tiptoe  seem’d  to  touch  upon  a  sphere 
Too  gross  to  tread,  and  all  male  minds  perforco 
Sway’d  to  her  from  their  orbits  as  they  moved, 

And  girdled  her  with  music.  Happy  he 
With  such  a  mother  !  faith  in  womankind 
Beats  with  his  blood,  and  trust  in  all  things  high 
Comes  easy  to  him,  and,  though  he  trip  and  fall. 

He  shaU  not  blind  his  soul  with  clay.” 


H.  R. 


48 


LECTURE  FIRST. 


novel-reader,  for  instance,  the  luxury  of  reading  becomes 
a  perpetual  stimulant,  with  no  demand  on  the  mind’s  own 
energy,  and  slowly  wearing  it  away.  The  true  enjoyment 
of  books  is  when  there  is  a  co-operating  power  in  the 
reader’s  mind — an  active  sympathy  with  the  book ;  and 
those  are  the  best  books  which  demand  that  of  you. 
And  here  let  me  notice  how  unfortunate  and,  indeed,  mis¬ 
chievous  a  term  is  the  word  “  taste”  as  applied  in  inter¬ 
course  with  literature  or  art;  a  metaphor  taken  from  a 
passive  sense,  it  fosters  that  lamentable  error,  that  litera¬ 
ture,  which  requires  the  strenuous  exertion  of  action  and 
sympathy,  may  be  left  to  mere  passive  impressions.  The 
temptation  to  receive  an  author’s  mind  unreflectingly  and 
passively  is  common  to  us  all,  but  greater,  I  believe,  for 
women,  who  gain,  however,  the  advantages  of  a  readier 
sympathy  and  a  more  unquestioning  faith.  The  man’s 
mind  reacts  more  on  the  book,  sets  himself  more  in 
judgment  upon  it,  and  trusts  less  to  his  feelings;  but,  in 
all  this,  he  is  in  more  danger  of  bringing  his  faculties 
separately  into  action :  he  is  more  apt  to  be  misled  by  our 
imperfect  systems  of  metaphysics,  which  give  us  none 
but  the  most  meagre  theories  of  the  human  mind,  and 
which  are  destined,  I  believe,  to  be  swept  away,  if  ever  a 
great  philosopher  should  devote  himself  to  the  work  of 
analyzing  the  processes  of  thought.  That  pervading  error 
of  drawing  a  broad  line  of  demarcation  between  our  moral 
and  intellectual  nature,  instead  of  recognising  the  inti¬ 
mate  interdependence  of  thought  and  feeling,  is  a  fallacy 
that  scarce  affects  the  workings  of  a  woman’s  spirit.  If 
a  gifted  and  cultivated  woman  take  a  thoughtful  interesi 
in  a  book,  she  brings  her  whole  being  to  bear  on  it,  and 
hence  there  will  often  be  a  better  assurance  of  truth  in 


principles  of  literature. 


49 


her  conclusions  than  in  man’s  more  logical  deductions, 
just  as,  by  a  similar  process,  she  often  shows  finer  and 
quicker  tact  in  the  discrimination  of  character.  It 
has  been  justly  remarked,  that,  with  regard  “to  women 
of  the  highest  intellectual  endowments,  we  feel  that  we  do 
them  the  utmost  injustice  in  designating  them  by  such 
terms  as  ‘  clever,’  ‘  able,’  ‘  learned,’  ‘  intellectual  :’  they 
never  present  themselves  to  our  minds  as  such.  There  is 
a  sweetness,  or  a  truth,  or  a  kindness — some  grace,  some 
charm,  some  distinguishing  moral  characteristic  which 
keeps  the  intellect  in  due  subordination,  and  brings  them 
to  our  thoughts,  temper,  mind,  affections,  one  harmo¬ 
nious  whole.” 

A  woman’s  mind  receiving  true  culture  and  preserving 
its  fidelity  to  all  womanly  instincts,  makes  her,  in  our 
intercourse  with  literature,  not  only  a  companion,  but  a 
counsellor  and  a  helpmate,  fulfilling  in  this  sphere  the 
purposes  of  her  creation.  It  is  in  letters  as  in  life,  and 
there  (as  has  been  well  said)  the  woman  “who  praises  and 
blames,  persuades  and  resists,  warns  or  exhorts  upon 
occasion  given,  and  carries  her  love  through  all  with  a 
strong  heart,  and  not  a  weak  fondness — she  is  the  true 
helpmate.”* 

Cowper,  speaking  of  one  of  his  female  friends,  writes, 
“  She  is  a  critic  by  nature  and  not  by  rule,  and  has  a 
perception  of  what  is  good  or  bad  in  composition,  that 
never  knew  deceive  her;  insomuch  that  when  two  sorts 
of  expressions  have  pleaded  equally  for  the  precedence  in 
my  own  esteem,  and  I  have  referred,  as  in  such  cases  I 


*  The  Statesman,  by  Henry  Taylor,  p.  70. 


5 


50 


LECTURE  FIRST. 


always  did,  tlie  decision  of  the  point  to  her,  I  never 
knew  her  at  a  loss  for  a  just  one.”* 

His  best  biographer,  Southey,  alluding  to  himself,  and 
to  the  influence  exerted  on  Wordsworth’s  mind  by  the 
genius  of  the  poet’s  sister,  adds  the  comment,  “Were  I  to 
say  that  a  poet  finds  his  best  advisers  among  his  female 
friends,  it  would  be  speaking  from  my  own  experience, 
and  the  greatest  poet  of  the  age  would  confirm  it  by  his. 
But  never  was  any  poet  more  indebted  to  such  friends 
than  Cowper.  Had  it  not  been  for  Mrs.  Unwin,  he  would 
probably  never  have  appeared  in  his  own  person  as  an 
author ;  had  it  not  been  for  Lady  Austen,  he  never  would 
have  been  a  popular  one.” 

The  same  principles  which  cause  the  influences  thus 
salutary  to  authorship,  will  carry  it  into  reading  and 
study,  so  that  by  virtue  of  this  companionship  the  logical 
processes  in  the  man’s  mind  shall  be  tempered  with  more 
of  affection,  subdued  to  less  of  wilfulness,  and  to  a  truer 
power  of  sympathy;  and  the  woman’s  spirit  shall  lose 
none  of  its  earnest,  confiding  apprehensiveness  in  gaining 
more  of  reasoning  and  reflection ;  and  so,  by  reciprocal 
influences,  that  vicious  divorcement  of  our  moral  and 
intellectual  natures  shall  be  done  away  with,  and  the 
powers  of  thought  and  the  powers  of  affection  be  brought 
into  that  harmony  which  is  wisdom.  The  woman’s  mind 
must  rise  to  a  wiser  activity,  the  man’s  to  a  wiser 
passiveness;  each  true  to  its  nature,  they  may  consort  in 
such  just  companionship  that  strength  of  mind  shall  pass 
from  each  to  each ;  and  thus  chastened  and  invigorated, 
he  common  humanity  of  the  sexes  rises  higher  than  it 


*  Southey’s  Cowper,  vol.  ii.  p.  35. 


PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERATURE. 


51 


could  be  carried  by  either  the  powers  peculiar  to  man  or 
the  powers  peculiar  to  woman. 

Now  in  proof  of  this,  if  we  were  to  analyze  the  philo¬ 
sophy  which  Coleridge  employed  in  his  judgment  on 
books,  and  by  which  he  may  be  said  to  have  made  criti¬ 
cism  a  precious  department  of  literature — raising  it  into 
a  higher  and  purer  region  than  was  ever  approached  by 
the  contracted  and  shallow  dogmatism  of  the  earlier 
schools  of  critics — it  would,  I  think,  be  proved  that  he 
differed  from  them  in  nothing  more  than  this,  that  he 
cast  aside  the  wilfulness  and  self-assurance  of  the  mere 
reasoning  faculties;  his  marvellous  powers  were  wedded 
to  a  child-like  humility  and  a  womanly  confidingness, 
and  thus  his  spirit  found  an  avenue,  closed  to  feeble  and 
less  docile  intellects,  into  the  deep  places  of  the  souls  of 
mighty  poets :  his  genius  as  a  critic  rose  to  its  majestic 
height,  not  only  by  its  inborn  manly  strength,  but  because, 
with  woman-like  faith,  it  first  bowed  beneath  the  law  of 
obedience  and  love. 

It  is  a  beautiful  example  of  the  companionship  of  the 
manly  and  womanly  mind,  that  this  great  critic  of  whom 
I  have  been  speaking  proclaimed,  by  both  principle  and 
practice,  that  the  sophistications  which  are  apt  to  gather 
round  the  intellects  of  men,  clouding  their  vision,  are 
best  cleared  away  by  that  spiritual  condition  more  conge¬ 
nial  to  the  soul  of  woman,  the  interpenetrating  the 
reasoning  powers  with  the  affections. 

Coleridge  taught  his  daughter  that  there  is  a  spirit  of 
love  to  which  the  truth  is  not  obscured ;  that  there  are 
natural  partialities,  moral  sympathies,  which  clear  rather 
than  cloud  the  vision  of  the  mind ;  that  in  our  commu¬ 
nion  with  books,  as  with  mankind,  it  is  not  true  that 


52 


LECTURE  FIRST. 


u  love  is  blind.”  The  daughter  has  preserved  the  lesson 
in  lines  worthy  of  herself,  her  sire,  and  the  precious 
truth  embodied  in  them  : 

“Passion  is  blind,  not  love;  her  wondrous  might 
Informs  with  three-fold  power  man’s  inward  sight; 

To  her  deep  glance  the  soul,  at  large  displayed, 

Shows  all  its  mingled  mass  of  light  and  shade : 

Men  call  her  blind  when  she  but  turns  her  boad. 

Nor  scans  the  fault  for  which  her  tears  are  shed. 

Can  dull  Indifference  or  Hate's  troubled  gaze 
See  through  the  secret  heart’s  mysterious  maze? 

Can  Scorn  and  Envy  pierce  that  “  dread  abode” 

Where  true  faults  rest  beneath  the  eye  of  God? 

Not  theirs,  ’mid  inward  darkness,  to  discern 
The  spiritual  splendours,  how  they  shine  and  burn. 

All  bright  endowments  of  a  noble  mind 
They,  who  with  joy  behold  them,  soonest  find; 

And  better  none  its  stains  of  frailty  know 

Than  they  who  fain  would  see  it  white  as  snow.”* 

I  have  in  this  introductory  lecture  attempted  nothing 
beyond  the  exposition  of  a  few  broad  and  simple  princi¬ 
ples  of  literature,  the  importance  of  which  will  perhaps 
best  be  seen  in  the  practical  application  of  them  to  the 
guidance  and  formation  of  our  habits  of  reading.  It 

*  Biographia  Literaria,  of  S.  T.  C.  Vol.  i.  Part.  1.  p.  clxxxiv. 
Ed.  1847.  This  daughter  was  Mrs.  Sara  Coleridge,  who  died  in  1852. 
I  do  not  know  where  I  can  more  appositely  note  the  fact,  that,  when 
after  years  of  constant  literary  correspondence  with  different  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  Coleridge  family,  Mr.  Reed  visited  England  in  1854,  the 
welcome  he  received  from  them  was  most  cordial  and  affectionate. 
He  was  greeted  as  an  old  friend  and  taken  homo  to  their  very  hearts. 
Since  his  death,  no  more  earnest  and  affectionate  tributes  to  his 
memory,  no  more  accurate  appreciation  of  his  character,  have  been 
paid  than  by  this  circle  of  his  kind  English  friends.  Especially  I 
will  venture  to  refer  to  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge  and  his  kinsman,  tho 
Rev.  Derwent  Coleridge  of  St.  Mark’s  Colloge,  Chelsea.  AY.  B.  R 


PRINCIPLES  OF  LITERATURE.  M 

was  my  intention  to  have  worked  those  principles  out 
to  their  application,  hut  I  have  already  consumed  more 
of  your  time  than  I  desire  to  do  during  one  evening. 
It  seemed  necessary  to  show,  in  the  first  place,  that 
I  appreciated  the  difficulties  which  are  caused  by  the 
multiplicity  of  books;  and  then  to  set  forth  these  es¬ 
sential  principles  of  literature,  as  distinguished  from 
mere  hooks,  that  it  is  addressed  to  our  universal  human 
nature,  and  that  it  gives  power  not  to  the  intellect  alone, 
but  to  our  whole  spiritual  being;  and  that  if  it  be  true 
to  its  high  purpose,  it  gives  power  of  wisdom  and  happi¬ 
ness.  I  felt  it  to  be  important  also,  with  a  view  to  some 
applications  to  be  made  in  subsequent  lectures — to  con¬ 
sider  the  reciprocal  relations  of  the  manly  and  womanly 
mind. 

I  propose  in  the  next  lecture  to  consider  the  applica¬ 
tion  of  these  principles  to  habits  and  courses  of  reading ; 
reserving  for  the  third  lecture  the  subject  of  the  English 
language,  to  which  I  am  anxious  to  devote  an  entire 
lecture. 


D 


iECTURE  II. 


application  of  |fiterarg  principles.* 

Narrow  and  exclusive  lines  of  reading  to  be  avoided — Cutbolicity  of 
taste — Charles  Lamb’s  idea  of  books — Ruskin — Habits  of  reading 
comprehensive — Ancient  Literature — Foreign  languages — Differ¬ 
ent  eras  of  letters — English  essay-writing — Macaulay — Southey — 
Scott  and  Washington  Irving — Archdeacon  Hare — Lord  Bacon’s 
Essays — Poetic  taste — Influence  of  individual  pursuits — Friends  in 
Council — Serious  and  gay  books — English  humour — Southey’s  bal¬ 
lad — Necessity  of  intellectual  discipline — Disadvantage  of  courses 
of  reading — Books  not  insulated  things — Authors  who  guide — 
Southey’s  Doctor — Elia — Coleridge — Divisions  of  Prose  and  Pootry 
— Henry  Taylor’s  Notes  from  Books — Poetry  not  a  mere  luxury  of 
the  mind — Arnold’s  habits  of  study  and  taste — The  practical  and 
poetical  element  of  Anglo-Saxon  character — The  Bible — Mosaic 
Poetry — Inadequacy  of  languago — Lockhart’s  character  of  Scott — 
Arnold’s  character  of  Seipio — Tragic  Poetry — Poetry  for  children — 
Robinson  Crusoe  and  the  Arabian  Nights — Wordsworth’s  Odo  to 
Duty — Character  of  Washington. 

'In  my  last  lecture  I  sought  to  show  how,  amid  the  multi¬ 
tude  of  books,  we  must  in  the  first  place  seek  guidance  for 
our  choice  by  laying  down  in  our  minds  certain  general 
principles  respecting  the  essential  properties  and  uses  of 
literature.  I  endeavoured  to  show  that  nothing  hut  what 
is  addressed  to  man  as  man  is  literature,  and  that  that  is 
more  appropriately  and  eminently  literature  which  gives 
power  rather  than  knowledge,  and  that  that  is  worthy 
literature  which  gives  power  for  good,  healthful  strength 


*  January  10,  1850. 


54 


APPLICATION  OF  LITERARY  PRINCIPLES. 


&fi 


of  mind,  wisdom,  and  happiness.  Now  let  us  see  how  we 
can  follow  the  principles  out  to  practical  uses.  It  might 
be  thought  that  such  a  definition  of  literature  was  too 
narrow  a  one  ;  that  it  was  too  high  and  serious  a  view  of 
the  subject;  and  that  it  would  exclude  much  inoffensive 
and  agreeable  reading.  "When  I  speak  of  a  book  giving 
moral  power  and  health,  or  even  if  I  should  use  words  of 
graver  import,  spiritual  strength  and  health,  I  employ 
these  expressions  in  their  largest  sense,  as  comprehending 
the  whole  range  of  our  inner  life,  from  the  lonely  and 
loftiest  meditations  down  to  casual,  colloquial  cheerfulness, 
so  that  literature,  in  its  large  compass,  shall  furnish  sym¬ 
pathy  and  an  answer  to  every  human  emotion,  and  to  all 
moods  of  thought  and  feeling.  It  is  important,  in  the  first 
place,  having  settled  in  one’s  mind  an  idea  of  the  general 
properties  of  literature,  to  give  to  it  a  large  and  liberal  ap¬ 
plication  :  in  other  words,  to  avoid  narrow  and  exclusive 
lines  in  reading,  to  cultivate  a  true  catholicity  of  taste. 
In  so  doing,  you  enlarge  your  capacities  of  enjoyment; 
you  expand  tbe  discipline  as  well  as  the  delights  of  the 
mind.  It  is  with  books  as  with  nature,  travel  widely,  and 
while  at  one  time,  you  may  behold  the  glories  of  the 
mountains,  or  the  sublimities  of  the  sea,  you  shall  at 
another  take  delight  as  genial  in  the  valley  and  the  brook. 
We  must  needs  be  watchful  of  our  habits  of  reading  in 
this  respect,  for  favourite  lines  of  reading  may  come  to  be 
too  exclusive.  A  favourite  author  may  have  too  large  an 
occupation.  Women  should  remember  that  in  all  that  is 
essentially  literature,  they  have  a  right  in  common  with 
men,  because  the  very  essence  of  it  is,  that  it  addresses 
itself  to  no  distinctive  property  of  sex,  but  to  human 
nature.  Thej  wrong  themselves  in  shrinking  from  any 


68 


LECTURE  SECOND. 


portion,of  the  literature  of  their  race,  and  they  wrong  man 
by  not  fulfilling  in  this  respect  the  duty  of  companionship. 
For  man  and  woman,  alike,  liberal  communion  with  books 
is  needed.  I  have  known  a  person  acquire  late  in  life  a 
hearty  and  healthful  enjoyment  of  books,  by  this  simple- 
principle  of  opening  the  mind  to  docile  and  varied  inter¬ 
course  with  them.  I  have  known,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
power  of  enjoyment  lost,  after  years  of  intelligent  and 
habitual  reading,  by  giving  way  to  a  narrow  bigotry  in  the 
choice  of  books.  Daintiness,  let  it  be  always  remembered, 
is  disease,  and  fastidiousness  is  weakness.  The  healthy 
appetite  of  mind  or  body  is  strength  for  all  healthful  food. 
There  was  wisdom  under  the  humour  when  Charles  Lamb 
said,  “  I  have  no  repugnances.  Shaftesbury  is  not  too 
genteel  for  me,  nor  Jonathan  Wild  too  low.  I  can  read 
anything  which  I  call  a  booh And  a  living  writer,  who 
has,  with  high  power  and  eloquence,  treated  man’s  sense 
of  enjoyment  of  nature  and  art,  remarks :  “  Our  purity 
of  taste  is  best  tested  by  its  universality,  for  if  we  can  only 
admire  this  thing  or  that,  we  may  be  sure  that  our  cause 
for  liking  is  of  a  finite  and  false  nature.  But  if  we  can 
perceive  beauty  in  every  thing  of  God’s  doing,  we  may 
agree  that  we  have  reached  the  true  perception  of  its  uni¬ 
versal  laws.  Hence  false  taste  may  be  known  by  its  fas¬ 
tidiousness,  by  its  demands  of  pomp,  splendour,  and 
unusual  combination,  by  its  enjoyment  only  of  particular 
styles  and  modes  of  things,  and  by  its  pride  also,  for  it  is 
forever  meddling,  mending,  accumulating,  and  self-exult¬ 
ing  ;  its  eye  is  always  upon  itself,  and  it  tests  all  things 


•  Lamb’s  Prose  Works,  rol.  3,  p.  45.  “Detached  Thoughts  on 
Books  and  Reading.” 


A  I’ PLICATION  0*'  LITERARY  PRINCIPLES. 


K 


around  it  by  the  way  they  fit  it.  But  true  taste  is  forevei 
growing,  learning,  reading,  worshipping,  laying  its  hand 
upon  its  mouth  because  it  is  astonished,  casting  its  shoes 
from  off  its  feet  because  it  finds  all  ground  holy,  lament¬ 
ing  over  itself,  and  testing  itself  by  the  way  it  fits  things.”* 
This  finely-conceived  contrast  between  the  catholicity  of 
true  taste,  and  the  narrowness  of  a  false  taste,  is  equally 
true  as  applied  to  literature.  Indeed,  it  is  matter  of  the 
highest  moment  in  the  guidance  of  our  habits  of  reading 
to  make  them  large  and  comprehensive  ;  it  is  essential  to 
a  just  judgment  of  books,  and  also  to  a  full  enjoyment  of 
them.  We  form  a  truer  estimate  of  things,  when  we  rise 
to  a  high  point,  and  get  a  larger  field  of  vision.  A  know¬ 
ledge  of  ancient  literature,  gives  a  deeper  insight  into  the 
modern;  if  we  see  to  what  point,  and  in  what  manner,  the 
pagan  mind  struggled,  we  can  the  better  comprehend  the 
higher  destiny  of  the  Christian  mind.  Acquaintance  with 
foreign  literature  may  help  to  a  better  estimate  of  our 
own.  I  shall  have  occasion  hereafter,  more  than  once,  to 
trace  the  influences  of  the  continental  literature  of  Europe 
upon  English  literature.  Let  me  here  remark,  that  while 
the  study  of  foreign  languages  and  literature,  along  with 
many  other  advantages,  may  help  us  the  better  to  under¬ 
stand  and  feel  our  own,  it  never  can  be  made  a  substitute 
without  great  detriment.  I  make  this  remark,  because  in 
the  education  of  the  day,  and  especially  in  the  education 
of  women,  there  is  a  tendency  to  give  to  the  mind  a  direc¬ 
tion  too  much  away  from  the  literature  of  our  own  speech. 
This  arises  partly,  perhaps,  from  one  of  the  misdirected 
aims  of  education,  looking  to  the  showiness  of  accomplish- 


*  Ruskin’s  Modern  Painters,  vol.  1,  p.  23. 


58 


LECTURE  SECOND. 


mcnts,  rather  than  to  more  substantial  and  all-pervading 
good.  If  a  man  or  a  woman  be  ambitious  of  applause, 
and  great  or  small  celebrity,  one’s  native  literature  is  a 
much  less  effective  weapon  than  a  foreign  literature;  and 
the  more  remote  that  is,  the  more  effective  it  is  for  osten¬ 
tation.  But  if  there  be  a  better  purpose  than  feeding 
vanity,  then,  for  all  the  best  and  most  salutary  influences, 
nothing  can  take  the  place  of  the  vernacular — the  litera¬ 
ture  identified  with  the  mother-tongue,  with  which 
alone  our  thoughts  and  feelings  have  their  life  and 
being. 

Further,  an  expanded  habit  of  reading  is  most  im¬ 
portant,  as  giving  familiarity  with  different  eras  of  our 
own  literature.  I  hope  to  show  in  this  course  that  the 
succession  of  those  eras  has  a  relation  to  each  other  much 
more  life-like  than  a  mere  sequence  of  time.  There  is  a 
continuity  in  a  nation’s  literary  as  well  as  political  life ; 
and  no  generation  can  cast  off  the  accumulated  influences 
of  previous  ages  without  grievous  detriment  to  itself. 
There  are  many  readers  who  dwell  altogether  in  their 
own  times,  busy  with  what  one  day  produces  after 
another.  This  is  a  great  error;  and  they  are  the  less 
able  to  gain  a  rational  knowledge  of  that  very  litera¬ 
ture,  because  exclusive  familiarity  with  it  gives  no  vision 
beyond,  and,  consequently,  no  capacity  of  comparison.- 

Now  just  in  proportion  as  one  enlarges  his  reading 
into  different  periods,  does  his  taste  grow  more  en¬ 
lightened  and  wiser,  and  his  judgment  more  assured. 
Let  us  take  a  practical  example;  and  I  turn  for  the 
purpose  to  the  department  of  English  Essay- Writing, 
in  which  the  mind  of  our  race  has  found  utterance  in 
several  centuries.  During  the  last  few  years  there  has 


APPLICATION  OF  LITERARY  PRINCIPLES. 


59 


been  a  large  multitude  of  readers  for  Mr  Macaulay’s 
Essays — brilliant,  showy,  attractive  reading.  But  what 
assurance  can  any  one  of  that  multitude,  who  is  unac¬ 
quainted  with  other  productions  in-  the  same  class  of 
books,  have,  in  his  admiration  of  these  essays  ?  How  can 
he  be  assured  that  they  are  goiug  to  endure  in  our  litera¬ 
ture,  and  that  their  attractions  are  rightful  attractions? 
I  myself  believe  that  they  will  prove  perishable,  because 
the  pungency  of  a  period,  and  the  dazzling  effects  of 
declamation  are,  to  Mr.  Macaulay,  dearer  at  least  than 
faith  and  charity.  The  admirer  of  his  Essays  may  think 
otherwise,  but  whether  he  be  right  or  wrong,  he  is  not 
entitled  to  form  a  judgment  unless  he  has  disciplined  his 
power  of  judging  by  the  reading  of  other  works  of  a 
kindred  nature — kindred,  I  mean,  in  form,  not  in  spirit. 
Let  him,  therefore,  turn  to  the  other  Essay-writing  of  our 
own  times,  (and  it  has  been  a  large  outlet  for  the  con¬ 
temporary  mind,)  the  essays  of  Southey,  of  Scott,  of 
Washington  Irving,  the  inimitable  “  Elia”  of  Charles 
Lamb,  or  that  thoughtful  and  thought-producing  miscel¬ 
lany,  the  “  Guesses  at  Truth.”  Then  going  back  into 
other  periods,  and  making  choice  of  some  of  Dr.  John¬ 
son’s  Essays  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  of  Addison’s  or  Steele’s  in  the  “  Spectator”  and  the 
“  Tatler,”  in  the  early  part  of  it,  he  will  find  his  judg¬ 
ment  enlarged  by  seeing  how  those  generations  dealt  with 
this  same  branch  of  letters.  Travelling  back  a  century 
earlier,  let  him  take  the  single  volume  of  Lord  Bacon’s 
Essays,  in  which  thoughts  and  suggestions  of  thought 
move  in  such  solid  phalanx  that  every  line  is  a  study. 
This  is  a  simple  rule  for  reading,  and  it  may  readily 
be  practised  :  then  bringing  his  acquaintance  with  the 


60 


LECTURE  SECONP. 


English  essays  of  the  last  two  hundred  years,  and  the 
power  of  judgment  he  has  at  the  same  time  been  uncon¬ 
sciously  gaining,  back  to  the  Macaulay  Essays,  and  he 
will  perceive  that  they  are  not  what  they  used  to  be  to 
him — that  the  brilliant  essayist  “  ’gins  to  pale  his  ineffec¬ 
tual  fire.”  A  sense  of  enjoyment  will  indeed  have  passed 
away,  but  it  will  be  because  the  reader  has  discovered 
elsewhere  a  deeper  wisdom,  a  more  tranquil  beauty  of 
thought  and  feeling,  and  of  expression,  a  fuller  beat  of 
the  human  heart.  The  flashing  of  the  will-o’-the-wisp  shall 
no  longer  mislead  him,  who  turns  his  looks  to  the  steady 
cottage  candle-light  quietly  shining  out  into  the  darkness, 
or  to  the  still  safer  guidance  of  the  slow-moving  stars. 

The  principle  which  I  have  thus  endeavoured  to  ex¬ 
emplify,  is  important  in  all  the  divisions  of  literature. 
It  is  needful  to  lift  us  out  of  the  influences  which  environ 
us,  to  raise  us  above  prejudices  and  narrow  judgments 
which  are  engendered  by  confinement  to  contemporaneous 
habits  of  opinion.  I  hope  to  show  at  another  part  of  the 
course  how  we  may  enlarge  and  elevate  our  Sunday  occu¬ 
pations,  and  fortify  our  judgment  of  the  sermons  we  read 
and  hear,  by  acquaintance  with  the  earlier  sacred  and 
devotional  literature,  especially  that  of  the  seventeenth 
century. 

In  nothing  is  familiarity  with  the  literature  of  various 
periods  more  important  than  in  the  culture  of  poetic  taste, 
our  judgments  and  feelings  for  the  poets.  One  meets 
perpetually  with  a  confident  partiality  for  some  poet  of 
the  day,  or  a  confident  antipathy  to  another;  and,  all  the 
while,  such  confidence  may  be  entirely  unequal  to  that 
which  is  the  simplest  test — the  capacity  to  comprehend  and 
enjoy  the  poetry  of  other  ages.  The  merits  of  the  living 


APPLICATION  OF  LITERARY  PRINCIPLES. 


61 


poets  must  be  more  or  less  in  dispute )  and  he  alone  has 
any  claim  to  venture  on  a  prediction,  as  to  which  shall 
he  immortal  and  which  ephemeral,  who  has  cultivated  his 
imagination  by  thoughtful  communion  with  the  great 
poets  of  former  centuries.  Let  him,  who  is  quick  to  con¬ 
demn,  or  slow  to  admire,  ask  whether  the  fault  may  not 
be  in  himself: — it  may  be  the  caprice  or  the  apathy  of 
uncultivated  taste :  he,  and  he  alone,  whose  capacity 
of  admiration  has  grown  by  culture  ample  enough  to 
know  and  to  feel  the  power  of  the  poetry  of  the  past,  is 
qualified  to  speak  in  judgment  of  the  poetry  of  the  pre¬ 
sent.  That  this  or  that  poem  pleases  him,  who  knows 
the  present  onty,  proves  nothing :  but  he,  whose  imagina¬ 
tion  responds  to  the  Chaucer  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
the  Spenser  and  Shakespeare  of  the  sixteenth,  and  the 
Milton  of  the  seventeenth  century,  can  see  truly  the  poets 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  foreknowing  which  light  shall 
pass  away  like  a  conflagration  or  a  meteor,  and  which  is 
beginning  a  perpetual  planetary  motion  with  the  great 
lights  of  all  ages. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  value  of  acquaintance  with  the 
literature  of  different  eras,  and  the  influence  is  reci¬ 
procal — the  earlier  upon  the  later,  and  the  later  upon 
the  earlier.  But  with  regard  to  the  elder  literature, 
there  is  an  agency  for  good  in  the  added  sentiment  of 
reverence.  The  mind  bows,  or  ought  to  bow  to  it,  as  to 
age  with  its  crown  of  glory.  It  is  as  salutary  as  for  the 
youthful  to  withdraw  for  a  season  from  the  companion¬ 
ship  of  their  peers,  and  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  the  old, 
listening  in  reverential  silence.  In  the  elder  literature, 
the  perishable  has  passed  away,  and  that  is  left  which 
has  put  on  its  immortality. 


a 


S2 


LECTURE  SECOND. 


A  true  catholicity  of  taste  in  our  intercourse  with 
boohs  is  in  danger  of  being  counteracted  not  only  by  the 
incessant  and  clamorous  demand  which  the  current  lite¬ 
rature  makes  upon  us,  but  also  by  the  impulses  which 
we  may  be  exposed  to  in  consequence  of  our  individual 
pursuits  and  personal  positions.  This  point  has  been 
wisely  touched  in  a  passage,  which  I  would  commend  to 
the  reflection  of  every  one,  in  the  recent  volume  of  that 
thoughtful  book,  u  Friends  in  Council ” — an  admirable 
specimen  of  the  essay-writing  of  our  day.  “  There  is,” 
it  is  remarked,  “  a  very  refined  use  which  reading  is  put 
to;  namely,  to  counteract  the  particular  evils  and  tempta¬ 
tions  of  our  callings,  the  original  imperfections  of  our 
characters,  the  tendencies  of  our  age,  or  of  our  own  time 
of  life.  Those,  for  instance,  who  are  versed  in  dull, 
crabbed  work  all  day,  of  a  kind  which  is  always  exer¬ 
cising  the  logical  faculty  and  demanding  minute,  not  to 
say,  vexatious  criticism,  would,  during  their  leisure,  do 
w’iscly  to  expatiate  in  writings  of  a  large  and  imaginative 
nature.  These,  however,  are  often  the  persons  who  parti¬ 
cularly  avoid  poetry  and  works  of  imagination,  whereas 
they  ought  to  cultivate  them  most.  For  it  should  be  one 
of  the  frequent  objects  of  every  man  who  cares  for  the 
culture  of  his  whole  being,  to  give  some  exercise  to  those 
faculties  which  are  not  demanded  by  his  daily  occupations 
and  not  encouraged  by  his  disposition.”* 

In  order  to  guard  our  habits  of  reading  from  the  nar¬ 
rowing  influences,  which  arise  either  from  outward  or 
inward  temptations,  it  is  necessary  to  cultivate  in  our 
choice  of  books  a  large  variety,  remembering,  however, 


*  Arthur  Ilelps  :  “  Friends  in  Council.”  Part  II.,  p.  15. 


APPLICATION  OF  LITERARY  PRINCIPLES. 


63 


that  the  variety  must  be  a  healthful  variety,  and  not 
that  mere  iove  of  change,  which,  owning  no  law,  is  capri¬ 
cious,  restless  and  morbid — at  once  a  symptom  and  a 
cause  of  weakness,  and  not  of  health.  To  the  mind  that 
cultivates  a  thoughtful  and  well-regulated  variety  in  its 
reading,  this  reward  will  come,  that,  where  before,  things 
seemed  separate  and  insulated,  beautiful  affinities  will 
reveal  themselves ;  you  will  feel  the  brotherhood,  as  it 
were,  that  exists  among  all  true  books,  and  a  deeper 
sense  of  the  unity  of  all  real  literature,  with  its  iufinite 
variety. 

In  adjusting  a  diversified  course  of  reading,  we  must 
keep  in  mind  that  it  is  not  alone  the  serious  literature 
which  gives  us  power  and  wisdom,  for  Truth  is  often 
earnest  in  its  joyousness  as  in  its  gravity  :  and  it  is  a 
beautiful  characteristic  of  our  English  literature,  that  it 
has  never  been  wanting  in  the  happy  compound  of 
pathos  and  playfulness,  which  we  style  by  that  untrans- 
lateable  term  “  Humour” — that  kindly  perception  of 
the  ridiculous  which  is  full  of  gentleness  and  sympathy. 
It  is  a  healthful  element :  it  chastens  the  dangerous 
faculty  of  Wit,  turning  its  envenomed  shafts  into 
instruments  of  healing  :  it  comes  from  the  full  heart, 
and  it  dwells  with  charity  and  love  of  the  pure  and 
the  lofty :  it  holds  no  fellowship  with  sarcasm  or 
scoffing  or  ribaldry,"  which  are  issues  from  the  hollow  or 
the  sickly  heart,  and  are  fatal  to  the  sense  of  reverence 
and  of  many  of  the  humanizing  affections.  A  sound 
humourous  literature  may  be  found  throughout  English 
language,  in  prose  and  verse,  from  its  earliest  periods 
down  to  our  own  times, — from  Chaucer  to  Southey  and 
Charles  Lamb;  and  it  behooves  us  to  blend  it  with  graver 


64 


l-ECTURE  SECOND. 


reading,  to  bring  it,  like  the  innocent  and  happy  face 
of  childhood,  in  the  presence  of  hard-thinking,  self-occu¬ 
pied,  care-worn,  sullen  men,  a  pensive  cheerfulness  to 
recreate  despondency  and  dejection,  j  It  is,  therefore, 
not  only  variety,  but  a  cheerful  variety,  that  should  be 
cultivated.  “  No  heart,”  it  has  been  well  said,  “would 
have  been  strong  enough  to  hold  the  woe  of  Lear  and 
Othello,  except  that  which  had  the  unquenchable  elasti¬ 
city  of  Falstaff  and  the  ‘  Midsummer  Night’s  Dream.’  ”* 
As  in  the  author,  so  in  the  reader — it  is  the  large  culture 
which  gives  the  more  equal  command  of  our  faculties, 
whereas  if  we  close  up  any  of  the  natural  resources  to 
the  mind,  there  follows  feebleness  or  disproportioned 
power,  or  moodiness  and  fantastic  melancholy,  and,  in 
extreme  cases,  the  crazed  brain.  It  the  statistics  be 
accurate,  it  is  an  appalling  fact  that  in  that  region  of  the 
United  States  in  which  the  intellect  has  been  stimulated 
to  most  activity,  insanity  prevails  to  an  extent  double 
that  in  sections  of  the  country  less  favourably  situated. 
It  would  seem  that  the  activity  of  the  intellect  had  been 
too  much  tended,  and  its  health  too  little.  It  is  a  com¬ 
mon  peril  of  humanity,  with  all  its  grades  of  danger,  from 
the  fitfulness  of  an  ill-regulated  mind  up  to  the  frenzy  of 
the  maniac. j* 


*  Hare’s  Guesses  at  Truth.  Part  I.,  p.  319. 

f  This  theory  was  no  doubt  founded  on  the  assumption  that  the 
census  statistics  of  insanity  were  correct;  but  my  friend,  and  my 
brother’s  friend,  Doctor  Thomas  J.  Kirkbride,  the  superintendent  of 
the  Pennsylvania  Hospital  for  the  Insane,  to  whom  I  showed  this 
passage,  says,  in  a  letter  now  before  me  : 

“  It  has  been  shown  conclusively  that  thero  can  be  no  dependence 
placed  on  the  census  returns,  and,  except  Massachusetts,  I  know  of  no 
state  that  has  instituted  inauiries  for  the  special  purpose  of  ascer- 


APPLICATION  OF  LITERARY  PRINCIPLES. 


61 


There  is  a  short  poem  of  Southey’s,  which,  in  this  con¬ 
nection,  has  a  sad  interest.  Having  written  one  of  those 
humourous  ballads  drawn  from  his  acquaintance  with 
Spanish  legendary  history,  he  added  an  epilogue  telling 
of  its  impressions  on  his  household  audience,  especially 
the  wondering  and  delighted  faces  of  his  children :  he 
turns  to  his  wife, 

But  when  I  looked  at  my  mistress’  face 
It  was  all  too  grave  the  while  ; 

And  when  I  ceased,  methought  there  was  more 
Of  reproof  than  of  praise  in  her  smile. 

That  smile  I  read  aright,  for  thus 
Reprovingly  said  she, 

“  Such  tales  are  meet  for  youthful  ears, 

But  give  little  content  to  me. 

“  From  thee  far  rather  would  I  hear 
Some  sober,  sadder  lay 

Such  as  I  oft  have  heard,  well  pleased, 

Before  those  locks  were  gray.” 

“Nay,  mistress  mine,”  I  made  reply, 

“  The  autumn  hath  its  flowers, 

Nor  ever  is  the  sky  more  gay 
Than  in  its  evening  hours. 

*  *  * 


taining  how  many  insane  are  to  be  found  within  her  limits.  Your 
brother’s  views  correspond  with  those  of  most  persons  who  have  paid 
attention  to  the  subject,  and  are  probably  correct;  but  it  must  also  be 
remembered  that  there  is  apparently,  at  least,  most  insanity  where  the 
largest  provision  is  made  for  the  treatment ;  for  large  numbers  of  cases 
then  come  before  the  public  notice  which  previously  had  been  kept 
out  of  observation.  New  England  being  a  pioneer  in  providing  State 
Hospitals,  the  number  of  insane  is  better  known  than  in  those  states 
which  have  just  commenced  the  erection  of  institutions  of  that 
character.”  \Y.  B.  R. 


6* 


“  That  sense  which  held  me  hack  in  youth 
From  all  intemperate  gladness, 

That  same  good  instinct  bids  me  shun 
Unprofitable  sadness. 

“  Nor  marvel  you  if  I  prefer 
Of  playful  themes  to  sing: 

The  October  grove  hath  brighter  tints 
Than  summer  or  than  spring; 

“  For  o’er  the  leaves  before  they  fall 
Such  hues  hath  nature  thrown, 

That  the  woods  wear  in  sunless  days 
A  sunshine  of  their  own. 

“  Why  should  I  seek  to  call  forth  tears  ? 

The  source  from  whence  we  weep 

Too  near  the  surface  lies  in  youth, 

In  age  it  lies  too  deep. 

‘*  Enough  of  foresight  sad,  too  much 
Of  retrospect  have  I  : 

And  well  for  me  that  I  sometimes 
Can  put  those  feelings  by; 

“  From  public  ills,  and  thoughts  that  else 
Might  weigh  me  down  to  earth, 

That  I  can  gain  some  intervals 
For  healthful,  hopeful  mirth.”* 

This  is  a  poet’s  wise  pleading,  and  there  is  warning  in 
the  fact  that  this  wife’s  shrinking  from  her  husband’s 
healthful,  hopeful  mirth,  was  the  precursor  of  insanity :  and 
it  is  sad  to  know  that  the  poet’s  own  lofty  and  richly  stored 
mind  sank,  not,  as  has  been  supposed,  from  the  exhaus¬ 
tion  of  an  over-tasked  brain,  but  under  the  wasting  watch¬ 
ings  over  the  wanderings  of  the  crazed  mind  of  the  wife. 
This  deepens  the  pensive  humour  of  the  lesson  be  has  left 


*■  Southey’s  Poetical  Works,  vol.  vi.  p.  282. 


APPLICATION  OP  LITERARY  PRINCIPLES. 


61 


us — to  find  joyous,  or  at  least  cheerful  companionship,  as 
well  as  serious,  in  books. 

Assuming  that  this  catholicity  of  taste,  the  value  of 
which  I  have  endeavoured  to  present,  is  acquired,  it  then 
becomes  a  matter  of  much  moment  to  have  some  princi¬ 
ples  to  guide  one  through  the  large  spaces  of  which  the 
mind  has  vision.  The  capacity  for  extended  and  various 
reading  may  lose  much  of  its  value,  if  undisciplined  and 
desultory.  Indeed,  if  a  large  and  varied  power  of  reading 
be  indulged  in  a  desultory  and  chance  way,  it  is  likely  to 
be  lost :  there  is  no  genuine  and  permanent  catholicity  of 
taste  for  books  but  what  is  guarded  by  principles,  and  has 
a  discipline  of  its  own.  That  discipline  is  twofold  :  it  is 
guidance  we  get  from  other  minds,  and  that  which  we  get 
from  our  own ;  and  as  these  are  well  and  wisely  combined, 
we  may  secure  ample  independence  for  our  own  thinking, 
and  ample  respect  for  the  wisdom  of  others. 

It  is  not  unfrequently  thought  that  the  true  guidance 
for  habits  of  reading  is  to  he  looked  for  in  prescribed 
courses  of  reading,  pointing  out  the  hooks  to  he  read,  and 
the  order  of  proceeding  with  them.  Now,  while  this  ex¬ 
ternal  guidance  may  to  a  certain  extent  be  useful,  I  do 
believe  that  an  elaborately  prescribed  course  of  reading 
would  be  found  neither  desirable  nor  practicable.  It  does 
not  leave  freedom  enough  to  the  movements  of  the  reader’s 
own  mind ;  it  does  not  give  free  enough  scope  to  choice. 
Our  communion  with  books,  to  he  intelligent,  must  be  more 
or  less  spontaneous.  It  is  not  possible  to  anticipate  how 
or  when  an  interest  may  be  awakened  in  some  particular 
subject  or  author,  and  it  would  be  far  better  to  break  away 
from  the  prescribed  list  of  books,  in  order  to  follow  out 
that  mterest  while  it  is  a  thoughtful  impulse.  It  would 


68 


LECTURE  SECOND. 


be  a  sorry  tameness  of  intellect  that  would  not,  sooner  or 
later,  work  its  way  out  of  the  track  of  the  best  of  any  such 
prescribed  courses.  This  is  the  reason,  no  doubt,  why 
they  are  so  seldom  attempted,  and  why,  when  attempted, 
they  are  apt  to  fail. 

It  may  be  asked,  however,  whether  every  thing  is  to  be 
left  to  chance  or  caprice,  whether  one  is  to  read  what  acci¬ 
dent  puts  in  the  way — what  happens  to  be  reviewed  or 
talked  about.  No  !  far  from  it :  there  would  in  this  be  no 
more  exercise  of  rational  will  than  in  the  other  process ; 
in  truth,  the  slavery  to  chance  is  a  worse  evil  than  slavery 
to  authority.  So  far  as  the  origin  of  a  taste  for  reading 
can  be  traced  in  the  growth  of  the  miud,  it  will  be  found, 
I  think,  mostly  in  the  mind’s  own  prompting;  and  the 
power  thus  engendered  is,  like  all  other  powers  in  our 
being,  to  be  looked  to  as  something  to  be  cultivated  and 
chastened,  and  then  its  disciplined  freedom  will  prove 
more  and  more  its  own  safest  guide.  It  will  provide 
itself  with  more  of  philosophy  than  it  is  aware  of  in  its 
choice  of  books,  and  will  the  better  understand  their  rela¬ 
tive  virtues.  On  the  other  hand,  I  apprehend  that  often 
a  taste  for  reading  is  quenched  by  rigid  and  injudicious 
prescription  of  books  in  which  the  mind  takes  no  interest, 
can  assimilate  nothing  to  itself,  and  recognises  no  progress 
but  what  the  eye  takes  count  of  in  the  reckoning  of  pages 
it  has  travelled  over.  It  lies  on  the  mind,  unpalateable, 
heavy,  undigested  food.  But  reverse  the  process  :  observe 
or  engender  the  interest  as  best  you  may,  in  the  young 
mind,  and  then  work  with  that — expanding,  cultivating, 
chastening  it. 

It  matters  little  from  what  point,  or  with  what  book  a 
young  reader  begins  his  career,  provided  he  brings  along 


APPLICATION  OF  LITERARY  PRINCIPLES. 


that  thoughtful  spirit  of  inquiry  in  which  activity  and 
docility  are  justly  balanced.  No  good  book  is  an  insulated 
thing;  you  can  always,  if  you  will  but  look  for  them,  dis¬ 
cover  leadings  on  to  something  else — other  books  on  the 
same  or  kindred  subjects — or  other  books  by  the  same 
author.  You  acquire  an  affection  for  an  author,  and  that 
may  be  made  to  embrace  the  books  of  his  affection.  I 
know  of  no  more  practical  or  safer  principle  in  the  gui¬ 
dance  of  one’s  reading,  than  thus  to  follow  an  author  in 
whom  you  feel  that  your  confidence  is  well  placed.  There 
are  what  may,  in  this  respect,  be  called  guiding  authors, 
whose  genial  love  of  letters  was  not  only  a  light  to  their 
own  lives,  but  still  shines,  a  lamp  to  show  the  path  to 
others.  You  feel  that  what  they  loved  may  fitly  be  loved 
by  you ;  that  what  stirred  their  spirits  may  have  a  power 
over  yours.  And  so  shall  we  find  perpetual  guidance,  fol¬ 
lowing  it  with  freedom  and  loyalty,  and  extending  our 
acquaintance  with  books  just  in  the  way  in  which  we  do 
with  our  acquaintance  with  living  men  and  women.  We 
use  books  for  instruction  or  amusement,  but  hardly  enough 
for  guidance.  Let  me  rapidly  exemplify  this  principle, 
the  value  of  which  is,  perhaps,  in  danger  of  being  over¬ 
looked  only  from  its  simplicity.  Take  such  a  book  as 
Southey’s  Life  of  Cowper,  and  you  shall  perceive  the  mind 
of  Cowper  and  of  his  biographer  so  touching  in  various 
ways  upon  other  authors,  as  to  attract  you  to  a  large  and 
admirable  variety  of  the  best  literature  in  the  language. 
Taking  that  remarkable  work  “  The  Doctor,”  in  which 
Southey  poured  forth  the  vast  abundance  of  his  fine 
scholarship,  or  the  Elia  Essays,  you  will  find  guidance 
into  many  of  the  beautiful  and  secluded  spots  in  English 

literature  Oi  again,  what  countless  suggestions  for  life- 
E 


70 


LECTURE  SECOXJ. 


long  reading,  and  what  wise  guidance  to  profitable  studies 
may  not  be  found  in  the  several  works  of  Coleridge  !  1 

mention  these  as  eminently  “  guiding  authors,”  and  it  would 
be  easy  to  add  to  the  list  others  of  the  same  class  in  their 
degree.  This  is  a  use  of  books  which  combines  healthful 
independence  of  judgment  with  healthful  reverence  for 
authority,  giving  safety  from  the  two  extremes — careless¬ 
ness  and  servility  of  opinion. 

It  affords  a  communion  of  thought  which  is,  in  some 
respects,  better  than  mere  formal  criticism.  It  is  free 
from  some  of  the  temptations  of  such  criticism, which  we 
must  be  careful  not  to  use  too  much  of,  in  these  times  of 
many  reviews  and  magazines,  and  when  we  turn  to  them 
for  guidance,  we  must  shun  as  a  pestilence,  all  heartless 
criticism,  all  uncongenial  criticism,  such  especially  as  un¬ 
imaginative  handling  of  subjects  of  imagination,  and  all 
malignant  criticism.  The  criticism,  which  may  well  be 
followed  and  commenced  with  is  that  of  which  it  has- 
been  said,  “It  may  almost  be  called  a  religious  criticism, 
for  it  holds  out  its  warnings  when  multitudes  are  mad  ; 
and  there  is  a  criticism  founded  upon  patient  research 
and  studious  deliberation,  which,  even  if  it  be  given 
somewhat  rudely  and  harshly,  cannot  but  be  useful. 
And  there  is  the  loving  criticism,  which  explains, 
elicits,  illumines;  showing  the  force  and  beauty  of  some 
great  word  or  deed,  which,  but  for  the  kind  care  of  the 
critic,  might  remain  a  dead  letter  or  an  inert  fact ;  teach¬ 
ing  the  people  to  understand  and  to  admire  what  is  ad¬ 
mirable.” 

In  following  out  the  general  principle  presented  in  the 
last  lecture,  that  literature — that  which  is  essentially  lite¬ 
rature  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  term — is  meant  to  give 


APPLICATION  OF  LITERARY  PRINCIPLES. 


71 


power  rather  than  information,  and  in  cherishing  a  catho¬ 
licity  of  taste  for  books,  it  is  a  good  practical  rule  to 
keep  one’s  reading  well  proportioned  in  the  two  great 
divisions,  prose  and  poetry.  This  is  very  apt  to  be  neg¬ 
lected,  and  the  consequence  is  a  great  loss  of  power, 
moral  and  intellectual,  and  a  loss  of  some  of  the  highest 
enjoyments  of  literature.  It  sometimes  happens  that 
some  readers  devote  themselves  too  much  to  poetry:  this 
is  a  great  mistake,  and  betrays  an  ignorance  of  the  true 
uses  of  poetical  studies.  When  this  happens,  it  is  generally 
with  those  whose  reading  lies  chiefly  in  the  lower  and 
merely  sentimental  region  of  poetry,  for  it  is  hardly  pos¬ 
sible  for  the  imagination  to  enter  truly  into  the  spirit  of 
the  great  poets,  without  having  the  various  faculties  of 
the  mind  so  awakened  and  invigorated,  as  to  make  a 
knowledge  of  the  great  prose  writers  also  a  necessity  of 
one’s  nature. 

The  disproportion  usually  lies  in  the  other  direction — 
prose  reading  to  the  exclusion  of  poetry.  This  is  owing 
chiefly  to  the  want  of  proper  culture,  for  although  there 
is  certainly  a  great  disparity  of  imaginative  endowment, 
still  the  imagination  is  part  of  the  universal  mind  of 
man,  and  it  is  a  work  of  education  to  bring  it  into  action 
in  minds  even  the  least  imaginative.  It  is  chiefly  to  the 
wilfully  unimaginative  mind  that  poetry,  with  all  its 
wisdom  and  all  its  glory,  is  a  sealed  book.  It  sometimes 
happens,  however,  that  a  mind,  well  gifted  with  imagina¬ 
tive  power,  loses  the  capacity  to  relish  poetry  simply  by 
the  neglect  of  reading  metrical  literature.  This  is  a  sad 
mistake,  inasmuch  as  the  mere  reader  of  prose  cuts  himself 
off  from  the  very  highest  literary  enjoyments;  for  if  the 
giving  of  power  to  the  mind  be  a  characteristic,  the  most 


LECTURE  SECOND. 


essential  literature  is  to  be  found  in  poetry,  especia/ly 
if  it  be  such  as  English  poetry  is,  the  embodiment 
of  the  very  highest  wisdom  and  the  deepest  feeling 
of  our  English  race.  I  hope  to  show  in  my  next 
lecture,  in  treating  the  subject  of  our  language,  how 
rich  a  source  of  enjoyment  the  study  of  English  verse, 
considered  simply  as  an  organ  of  expression  and  har¬ 
mony,  may  be  made;  but  to  readers  who  confine  them¬ 
selves  to  prose,  the  metrical  form  becomes  repulsive 
instead  of  attractive.  It  has  been  well  observed  by 
a  living  writer,  who  has  exercised  his  powers  alike  in 
prose  and  verse,  that  there  are  readers  “  to  whom  the 
poetical  form  merely  and  of  itself  acts  as  a  sort  of  veil 
to  every  meaning,  which  is  not  habitually  met  with  under 
that  form,  and  who  are  puzzled  by  a  passage  occurring  in 
a  poem,  which  would  bo  at  once  plain  to  them  if  divested 
of  its  cadence  and  rhythm ;  not  because  it  is  thereby  put 
into  language  in  any  degree  more  perspicuous,  but  because 
prose  is  the  vehicle  they  are  accustomed  to  for  this  par¬ 
ticular  kind  of  matter,  and  they  will  apply  their  minds 
to  it  in  prose,  and  they  will  refuse  their  minds  to  it  in 
verse.”* 

The  neglect  of  poetical  reading  is  increased  by  the  very 
mistaken  notion  that  poetry  is  a  mere  luxury  of  the  mind, 
alien  from  the  demands  of  practical  life — a  light  and  ef¬ 
fortless  amusement.  This  is  the  prejudice  and  error  of 
ignorance.  For  look  at  many  of  the  strong  and  largely 
cultivated  minds  which  we  know  by  biography  and  their 
own  works,  and  note  how  large  and  precious  an  element  of 
strength  is  their  studious  love  of  poetry.  Where  could 


*  Taylor’s  Notes  from  Boobs,  p.  215. 


APPLICATION  OF  LITERARY  PRINCIPLES.  /S 

we  find  a  man  of  more  earnest,  energetic,  practical  «ast 
of  character  than  Arnold  ? — eminent  as  an  historian, 
and  in  other  the  gravest  departments  of  thought  and 
learning,  active  in  the  cause  of  education,  zealous  in 
matters  of  ecclesiastical,  political,  or  social  reform ;  right 
or  wrong,  always  intensely  practical  and  single-hearted  in 
his  honest  zeal;  a  champion  for -truth,  whether  in  the  his¬ 
tory  of  ancient  politics  or  present  questions  of  modern 
society ;  and,  with  all,  never  suffering  the  love  of  poetry 
to  be  extinguished  in  his  heart,  or  to  be  crowded  out  of 
it,  but  turning  it  perpetually  to  wise  uses,  bringing  the 
poetic  truths  of  Shakspeare  and  of  Wordsworth  to  the 
help  of  the  cause  of  truth ;  his  enthusiasm  for  the  poets 
breaking  forth,  when  he  exclaims,  “  AVhat  a  treat  it  would 
be  to  teach  Shakspeare  to  a  good  class  of  young  Greeks 
in  regenerate  Athens;  to  dwell  upon  him  line  by  line 
and  word  by  word,  and  so  to  get  all  his  pictures  and 
thoughts  leisurely  into  one’s  mind,  till  I  verily  think  one 
would,  after  a  time,  almost  give  out  light  in  the  dark, 
after  having  been  steeped,  as  it  were,  in  such  an  atmo¬ 
sphere  of  brilliance  !”* 

This  was  the  constitution  not  of  one  man  alone,  but  of 
the  greatest  minds  of  the  race;  for  if  our  Anglo-Saxon 
character  could  be  analyzed,  a  leading  characteristic 
would  be  found  to  be  the  admirable  combination  of  the 
practical  and  the  poetical  in  it.  This  is  reflected  in  all 
the  best  English  literature,  blending  the  ideal  and  the 
actual,  never  severing  its  highest  spirituality  from  a 
steady  basis  of  sober,  good  sense — philosophy  and  poetry 


*  Arnold’s  Life,  p.  284,  (American  Edition,)  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Jus¬ 
tice  Coleridge. 


» 


LECTURE  SECOND. 


forever  disclosing  affinities  with  each  other.  It  was  nc 
false  boast  when  it  was  said  that  “  Our  great  poets  have 
been  our  best  political  philosophers;”*  nor  would  it  be, 
to  add  that  they  have  been  our  best  moralists.  The 
reader,  then,  who,  on  the  one  hand,  gives  himself  wholly 
to  visionary  poetic  dreamings  is  false  to  his  Saxon  blood  ; 
and  equally  false  is  he  who  divorces  himself  from  com¬ 
munion  with  the  poets.  There  is  no  great  philosopher  in 
our  language  in  whose  genius  imagination  is  not  an 
active  element :  there  is  no  great  poet  into  whose  charac¬ 
ter  the  philosophic  element  does  not  largely  enter.  This 
should  teach  us  a  lesson  in  our  studies  of  English  lite- 
rature.  - 

For  the  combination  of  prose  and  poetic  reading,  a 
higher  authority  is  to  be  found  than  the  predominant 
characteristic  of  the  Saxon  intellect  as  displayed  in  our 
literature.  In  the  One  Book,  which,  given  for  the  good 
of  all  mankind,  is  supernaturally  fitted  for  all  phases  of 
humanity  and  all  conditions  of  civilization,  observe  that 
the  large  components  of  it  are  history  and  poetry.  How 
little  else  is  there  in  the  Bible  !  In  the  Old  Testament 
all  is  chronicle  and  song,  and  the  high-wrought  poetry  of 
prophecy.  In  the  New  Testament  are  the  same  elements, 
with  this  difference,  that  the  actual  and  the  imaginative 
are  more  interpenetrated — narrative  and  parable,  fact  and 
poetry  blended  in  matchless  harmony ;  and  even  in  the 
most  argumentative  portion  of  holy  Writ,  the  poetic  cle¬ 
ment  is  still  present,  to  be  followed  by  the  vision  and 
imagery  of  the  Apocalypse. 

Such  is  the  unquestioned  combination  of  poetry  and 


*'  Preface  to  Henry  Taylor’s  Notes  on  Books. 


APPLICATION  OF  LITERARY  PRINCIPLES. 


75 


prose  in  sacred  Writ — the  best  means,  we  mast  believe, 
for  the  universal  and  perpetual  good  of  man;  and  if  lite¬ 
rature  have,  as  I  have  endeavoured  to  prove  in  the  pre¬ 
vious  lecture,  a  kindred  character,  of  an  agency  to  build 
up  our  incorporeal  being,  then  does  it  follow  that  we 
should  take  this  silent  warning  from  the  pages  of  Reve¬ 
lation,  and  combine  in  our  literary  culture  the  same  ele¬ 
ments  of  the  actual  and  the  ideal  or  imaginative. 

But,  as  it  is  the  poetic  culture  which  is  most  fre¬ 
quently  discarded,  let  me  follow  out  this  high  authority 
in  that  direction.  You  will  recall  how,  when  it  was  the 
divine  purpose  to  imprint  upon  the  memory  of  the  chosen 
race  what  should  endure  from  generation  to  generation, 
the  minister  of  the  divine  will  was  inspired  to  speak,  not 
in  the  language  of  argument  or  law,  but  in  the  impas¬ 
sioned  strains  of  the  imagination.  The  last  tones  of  that 
voice  which  had  roused  his  countrymen  from  slavery  and 
sensuality  in  Egypt,  and  cheered,  and  threatened,  and 
rebuked  them  during  their  wanderings,  which  had  an¬ 
nounced  the  statutes  of  Jehovah,  had  proclaimed  victory 
to  the  obedient  and  judgment  on  the  rebellious — the  last 
tones,  which  were  to  go  on  sounding  and  sounding  into 
distant  ages,  were  the  tones  of  poetry.  The  last  inspira- 
tion  which  came  down  into  the  soul  of  Moses  burst  forth 
in  that  sublime  ode  which  was  his  death-song.  And  why 
was  this  ?  “  It  shall  come  to  pass,”  are  the  words, 

“when  many  evils  and  troubles  are  befallen  them,’ that 
this  song  shall  testify  against  them  as  a  witness,  for  it 
shall  not  be  forgotten  out,  of  the  mouth  of  their  seed.” 
Well  may  we  conceive  how,  in  after  times,  when  Israel 
was  hunted  by  the  hand  of  Midian  into  caves  and  dens — 
when,  smitten  by  the  Philistine,  the  ark  of  God  was 


76 


LECTURE  SECOND. 


snatched  away — when,  after  Jerusalem  had  known  its 
highest  glory,  the  sword  of  the  King  of  the  Chaldees 
smote  their  young  men  in  the  sanctuary,  and  spared 
neither  young  man  nor  maiden,  old  man  nor  him  that 
stooped  for  age,  or  when  the  dark-browed  Israelite  was 
wandering  in  the  streets  of  Nineveh  or  Babylon,  an 
exile  and  a  slave, — how  must  there  have  arisen  on  his  nad 
spirit  the  memory  of  that  song,  with  its  sublime  images 
of  God’s  protection,  now  forfeited,  “  as  an  eagle  stirreth 
up  ber  nest,  fluttereth  over  her  young,  spreadeth  abroad 
her  wings,  so  the  Lord  alone  did  lead  him,  and  there  was 
no  strange  god  with  him  \” 

I  know  that  there  is  a  way  in  which  some  people  turn  a 
deaf  ear  to  this,  saying  that  it  is  Oriental  imagery,  an 
Asiatic  fashion  of  speech.  Yes,  but  none  the  less,  in  the 
all-foreseeing  purposes  of  Him  who  inspired  it,  was  it 
meant  for  all  after  time  and  all  after  generations  of  men — 
in  the  West  no  less  than  in  the  East.  The  ancient  and  the 
Hebrew  song  had  a  modern  and  a  larger  destiny ;  it  was  to 
pass  into  a  body  of  English  words,  and  so  come  unto  us. 

This  proof  of  the  value  of  poetic  culture  is  fortified 
when  you  reflect  how  that  which  may  be  reverenced  as 
the  very  ideal  of  poetry — I  mean  that  which  flowed  from 
direct  divine  inspiration — has  always  proved  its  adaptation 
to  the  hearts  of  men  in  all  ages,  in  the  Christian  as  well 
as  in  the  Jewish  church,  in  all  their  conditions  of  joy 
and  of  woe.  The  Holy  City  was  given  over  to  the  fear¬ 
ful  fulfilment  of  prophecy  by  the  bloody  sword  of  the 
Chaldean  and  the  Roman — its  temple  and  town  razed  to 
the  ground,  to  be  for  a  weary  length  of  centuries  trodden 
on  by  the  infidel  foot  of  the  Saracen ;  and  yet  the  sounds 
that  issued  from  the  harp  of  Jerusalem’s  king,  silenced  in 


APPLICATION  OF  LITERARY  PRINCIPLES. 


77 


the  desecrated  city,  have  never  been  hushed  elsewhere, 
hut  to  this  day  are  heard,  and  their  never-ending  echoes 
will  rise  up  to  heaven  from  every  side  of  the  round  earth 
as  long  as  this  planet  of  ours  shall  roll  glittering  -in  the 
sunlight  through  the  boundless  spaces  of  the  sky.  And 
thus  it  is  that  in  all  true  worship  there  is  incorporated 
forever  the  large  influence  of  imagination. 

Now,  I  have  spoken  of  the  combination  of  the  practical 
and  the  poetical  as  a  character  of  our  English  race,  of  the 
greatest  English  minds,  and  above  all,  as  observable  in 
Holy  Writ;  and  such  authority  might  be  all-sufficient ; 
but  let  us  further  seek  a  reason  why  this  combination 
should  be  cherished,  and  prose  and  poetry  studied  in  well- 
adjusted  proportion.  I  speak  of  them  as  distinct,  but  let 
it  be  remembered  that  they  are  not  contra-distinguished, 
for  the  best  prose  and  the  best  poetry  are  but  varied  forms 
of  uttered  wisdom.  The  perfection  of  a  literature  is  in  the 
true  combination  of  its  poetry  and  prose,  which  bear  to 
each  other  a  relation  which  has  been  imaged  with  equal 
truth  and  fancy  in  these  simple  stanzas : 

I  looked  upon  a  plain  of  green 

That  some  one  called  the  land  of  prose, 

Where  many  living  things  were  seen 
In  movement  or  repose. 

I  looked  upon  a  stately  hill, 

That  well  was  named  the  mount  of  song, 

Where  golden  shadows  dwelt  at  will, 

The  woods  and  streams  among. 

But  most  this  fact  my  wonder  bred, 

Though  known  by  all  the  nobly  wise — ■ 

It  was  the  mountain  streams  that  fed 
The  fair  green  plain’s  amenities.* 


*  Anonymous. — “Poetry,  Past  and  Present,”  p.  194. 


LECTURE  SECOND. 


T8 

The  prose  literature  leads  us  along  into  the  region  of 
actual  truth,  that  which  has  manifested  itself  in  action,  in 
deeds,  in  historic  events,  in  biographic  incidents.  It 
tells  us  what  men  have  done,  and  said,  and  suffered,  or  it 
reasons  on  the  capacity  for  action  and  for  passion,  and  so 
it  gives  power  to  the  mind,  in  making  us  the  better  know 
ourselves  and  our  fellow-beings.  But  most  inadequate  are 
his  conceptions  of  truth,  who  thinks  it  has  no  range  beyond 
the  facts  and  outward  things  which  observation  and  re¬ 
search  and  argument  ascertain.  Beneath  all  the  visible 
and  audible  and  tangible  things  of  the  world’s  history, 
there  lies  the  deeper  region  of  silent,  unseen,  spiritual 
truth — that  which  was  shadowed  forth  in  action,  and  yet 
the  action,  which  to  some  minds  seems  every  thing,  is  but 
the  shadow,  and  the  spirit  is  the  reality.  The  experience 
of  any  one’s  own  mind  may  teach  the  inadequacy  of  mere 
actual  truth :  has  not  every  one  felt,  at  the  time  when  any 
deep  emotion  stirred  him,  or  any  lofty  thought  animated 
him,  what  imperfect  exponents  of  such  emotion  or  thought, 
bis  words  or  actions  are  ?  Nay,  the  more  profound  and  sacred 
the  affection,  how  it  shrinks  from  any  outward  shape,  as 
too  narrow  and  superficial  for  it !  Is  it  not  in  your  daily" 
consciousness  to  recognise  the  presence  of  emotion-, 
yearnings,  aspirations  of  your  spiritual  nature,  which 
baffle  expression,  even  if  you  wished  to  bring  them  forth 
from  the  recess  of  silence — motions  of  the  soul,  which  word 
nor  deed  do  justice  to?  Bo  you  not  know  that  there  are 
sympathies,  affinities  with  our  fellow-beings,  and  with  the 
external  world  of  sight  and  sound,  which  pass  beyond  the 
reach  of  argument  or  common  speech  ?  So  true  is  it,  that 
there  are  powers, 


APPLICATION  OF  LITERARY  PRINCIPLES. 


7S 


“  That  touch  each  other  to  the  quick — in  modes 
Which  the  gross  world  no  sense  hath  to  perceive, 

No  soul  to  dream  of.”* 

This  whole  range  of  subjects,  of  deepest  moment  in  the 
science  of  humanity,  belongs  to  the  imaginative  portion 
of  literature,  toward  which  the  prose  literature  is  always 
tending,  whenever  it  approaches  the  deep  and  spiritual 
and  mysterious  parts  of  human  nature.  When  Mr.  Lock¬ 
hart,  at  the  conclusion  of  his  admirable  biography  of 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  devotes  a  chapter  to  a  delineation  of 
Scott’s  character,  with  all  his  familiarity  with  his  subject 
and  his  powers  as  an  author,  he  prefaces  his  attempt  with 
this  remark  :  “  Many  of  the  feelings  common  to  our 
nature  can  only  be  expressed  adequately,  and  some  of  the 
finest  can  only  be  expressed  at  all,  in  the  language  of  art, 
and  more  especially  in  the  language  of  poetry.”-)'  When 
Arnold,  in  his  History  of  Rome,  portrays  the  character  of 
Scipio,  and  especially  that  deep  religious  spirit  in  it 
which  baffled  the  ancient  historians — feeling  the  inade¬ 
quacy  of  his  effort  in  dealing  with  character,  which,  like 
Scipio’s  and  the  Protector  Cromwell’s,  “  are  the  wonders  of 
history,”  he  adds,  “the  genius  which  conceived  the  in¬ 
comprehensible  character  of  Hamlet  would  alone  be  able 
to  describe  with  intuitive  truth  the  character  of  Scipio,  or 
of  Cromwell. Now  observe  how  two  authors,  of  the 
finest  powers  in  these  two  high  departments — biography 
and  history — after  carrying  those  powers  to  the  farthest, 
profess  their  sense  of  how  much  remains  unaccomplished  ; 
and,  moreover,  their  conviction  that  all  of  higher  or  deepei 
achievement  which  lies  beyond  is  left  to  poetry,  or  left  to 


*  Wordsworth’s  “Address  to  Kilchum  Castle,”  collective  ed.  p.  212. 
t  Lockhart’s  Scott,  vol.  x.  p.  22.  J  History  of  Rome,  vol.  iii.  p.  3S5. 


80 


LECTURE  SECOND. 


silence;  not  that  it  is  less  true  or  less  real,  but  because 
there  is  truth  which  prose  can  never  reach  to — truth  to 
which  a  form  can  be  given  only  by  imagination  and  art, 
whether  using  the  instrument  of  words,  the  pencil,  or  the 
chisel — the  hand  of  poet,  of  painter,  or  of  sculptor.  We 
ought  to  remember,  then,  that  when  we  let  imaginative 
studies  drop  out  of  our  habits  of  reading,  we  neglect  a 
whole  region  of  truth  and  reality  which  the  highest  prose 
authority  acknowledges  itself  unequal  to. 

The  propensity  to  partial  prose  reading  is  attended  with 
further  loss,  inasmuch  as  it  not  only  separates  us  from 
much  of  the  highest  truth  human  nature  can  hold  com¬ 
munion  with,  but  it  makes  one  lose  the  finest  and  deepest- 
reaching  discipline  our  spiritual  being  is  capable  of.  Two 
thousand  years  ago,  the  great  philosopher  of  criticism  gave 
his  well-known  theory  of  tragic  poetry,  that  it  purifies  our 
feelings  through  terror  and  pity.  But  in  the  large  com¬ 
pass  of  its  power,  poetry  employs  also  other  and  kindlier 
agencies  cf  good.  It  deals  with  us  in  the  spirit  of  tho 
most  sagacious  morality  :  it  does  not  single  out  this  or  that 
faculty,  and  tutor  the  one  till  it  grows  weary  or  stubborn, 
or  stupid  under  the  narrow  teaching  and  the  dull  itera¬ 
tion,  but  it  addresses  good  sense,  (which  true  poetry  is 
never  heedless  of,)  the  intellect,  the  affections,  and  what 
has  been  well  called  “the  great  central  power  of  imagina¬ 
tion,  which  brings  all  the  other  faculties  into  harmonious 
action.”*  Instead  of  ministering  to  the  mind  diseased  or 
the  mind  enfeebled  one  drug,  or  hard,  unvaried  food,  it 
carries  poor  suffering  humanity  to  the  seaside,  or  up  to 
the  mountain-tops,  for  the  larger  contemplation  which 

*  Tsilfourd’s  Literary  Sketches  and  Letters,  being  tho  Final  Me¬ 
morials  of  Charles  Lainb,  p.  255. 


81 


« 


APPLICATION  of  literary  principles. 

leads  to  infinity,  and  for  the  health  and  strength  and  life 
of  sublimer  and  purer  thoughts  and  feelings.  Were  it 
possible  to  fathom  the  mystery  which  dwells  in  the  serious 
eyes  of  infancy,  we  should  learn,  I  believe,  that  nature 
leads  the  young  spirit  on  to  its  sense  of  truth  through 
wonderment  and  faith ;  and  we  do  know  how  the  imagina¬ 
tion  of  childhood  puts  forth  its  powers  into  the  region  of 
the  marvellous,  the  distant,  the  shadowy,  and  the  infinite, 
— Robinson  Crusoe’s  lonely  island,  the  Arabian  wonders, 
fairy  fictions,  fables  without  the  “morals,”  which  arc 
skipped  with  better  wisdom  than  they  were  put  there,  or 
travels  in  far-off  lands.  These  things  wear  away  as  the 
work  of  life  comes  on,  and,  unhappily,  the  loving,  faithful, 
imaginative  spirit  wears  away  too.  The  imagination  is 
suffered  to  grow  torpid,  instead  of  being  cultivated  into  a 
wiser  activity,  and  our  souls  become  materialized  and  so¬ 
phisticated.  There  is  enough  in  life  to  make  us  practical, 
but  what  we  more  need  is  to  study  how  to  be  wisely  vision¬ 
ary,  to  carry  the  freshness  and  feelings  of  childhood  (and 
this  has  been  said  to  be  a  characteristic  of  genius)  into 
the  mature  reason,  for 

We  live  by  admiration,  hope,  and  love; 

And,  even  as  these  are  well  and  widely  fixed, 

In  dignity  of  being,  we  ascend. 

Excursion,  collective  cd. — 587. 

This  is  the  poetic  process  of  our  spiritual  growth,  and  when 
the  poet  teaches  or  chastens,  he,  at  the  same  time,  elevates 
and  brings  forth  into  life  and  light  all  of  great  and  good 
that  lies  hidden  in  our  nature.  “  Wouldst  thou,”  says 
that  earnest  but  rigid  writer,  Carlyle,  “  plant  for  eternity, 
then  plant  into  the  deep,  infinite  faculties  of  man  his 
fantasy  and  heart;  wouldst  thou  plant  for  year  and  day, 
then  plant  into  his  shallow,  superficial  faculties,  his  self- 


82  LECTURE  SECOND. 

love,  and  arithmetical  understanding.”*  The  poet’s  planting 
is  the  deep  planting,  and  his  teaching  becomes  a  ministry 
within  our  inmost  being,  so  that  the  oracle  without  and  the 
response  within  are  in  marvellous  unity.  It  is  not  like  the 
lessons  which,  remaining  outward  to  us  and  unrecognised 
by  our  deep  sympathies,  are  easily  intercepted  by  chance 
or  blown  away  from  us,  but  it  is  made  part  of  our  very 
life  and  taste,  to  give  perpetual  strength  or  welcome  warn¬ 
ing  I  would  rather  a  child  of  mine  should  know  and 
feel  the  high,  imaginative  teachings  of  Wordsworth’s 
“  Ode  to  Duty,”  than  any  piece  of  uninspired  prose 
morality  in  the  language,  because  the  heart  that  will 
truly  take  that  lofty  lesson  unto  itself,  however  it  may 
falter  with  frailty  or  fall  short  in  the  fulfilment,  will  fain 
not  cast  it  out ;  it  is  teaching,  that  tempers  the  pride  and 
wilfulness  of  manhood,  showing  how  much  more  of 
moral  beauty  and  strength  and  happiness  there  is  in  the 
spirit  of  willing  obedience  than  in  that  of  power  or  of 
liberty ;  nay,  that  the  only  genuine  liberty  is  that  which 
is  in  harmony  with  law  and  self-control ;  it  is  teaching 
fitted  to  give  to  womanhood  a  star-like  life  and  motion, 
obedient  to  her  orbit,  and  kindling  the  firmament  of  hu¬ 
manity  with  bright  and  benignant  influences,  radiant  from 
that  orbit  alone;  for  the  poet,  better  than  the  prose 
moralist,  by  throwing  the  consecration  of  his  art  around 
the  sense  of  duty,  discloses  its  hidden  power  for  suffering 
or  for  action,  so  that,  if  need  be,  the  woman  will  bow, 
like  “  the  gentle  lady  married  to  the  Moor,”  beneath  the 
doom  of  some  dark  tragedy  of  home,  or,  if  man’s  wrongs 


*  Sartor  Resartus,  p.  228.  Am.  Ed. 


APPLICATION  OF  LITERARY  PRINCIPLES.  S3 

or  his  omissions  should  call  her  to  other  duties — for  what  a 
woman  ought  to  do  often  depends  on  what  man  does  or 
leaves  undone — she  will  go  forth,  like  Imogen,  for  wo¬ 
manly  well-doing  in  the  rude  places  of  the  open  and 
unroofed  world. 

When  that  accomplished  lady,  whose  genius,  with  no 
ther  instruments  than  the  poet’s  text  and  her  own  voice, 
so  finely  illustrated  the  genius  of  Shakspeare,  read  in  a 
neighbouring  city,  to  an  audience  of  teachers,  some  selec¬ 
tions  of  English  literature,  she  gave  that  eloquent  tribute 
to  the  character  of  Washington,  which  occurs  in  the  his¬ 
torical  lectures  of  Professor  Smyth,  of  the  English  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Cambridge,*  and  also  Wordsworth’s  Ode  to 
Duty,  to  which  I  have  made  allusion.  I  was  struck  with 
I  will  not  say  the  felicity  of  the  choice,  hut  with  the 
wisdom  of  it — the  one  selection  portraying  the  might  and 
glory  of  duty  as  actualized  in  the  life  of  the  moral  hero 
of  modern  times;  the  other  showing  them  idealized  by 
the  imagination  of  the  poet.  I  refer  to  this  as  an  admi¬ 
rable  combination  of  the  deep  teachings  of  prose  and 
poetry. 

In  order  to  receive  the  true  benefit  of  the  discipline 
of  poetry,  and  also  the  full  enjoyment  of  it,  there  must 
be  given  to  it  much  more  of  thought,  of  strenuous 
activity  of  the  reader’s  own  imagination,  more  caution 
of  mind,  than  most  people  think  it  worthy  of.  It  must 
be  studied,  and  not  merely  read.  There  are  some  books 
which  I  wish  to  commend  to  you  with  a  view  to  the 
proper  culture  and  discipline  of  the  imagination.  I  will 


*  Smith’s  Lectures,  vol.  ii.  p.  486. 


hike  occasion  to  give  an  opportunity  to  those  who  desire 
to  do  so  to  take  a  note  of  them,  on  the  next  evening, 
before  I  proceed  to  the  lecture  for  that  evening; — the 
subject  of  which  will  be  “The  Study  of  the  English 
Language,  considered  as  a  source  of  enjoyment  from  its 
powers  in  prose  and  verse.” 


LECTURE  III. 


®dje  ©nglislj  language.* 

Medium  of  ideas  often  forgotten — Witchery  of  English  words  —Analy¬ 
sis  of  good  style  difficult — The  power  of  words — Our  duty  to  the  Eng¬ 
lish  language — Lord  Bacon’s  idea  of  Latin — Milton — Hume’s  ex¬ 
postulation  with  Gibbon — Daniel’s  Lament — Extension  of  English 
language — French  dominion  in  America — Landor’s  Penn  and  Peter¬ 
borough — Duty  of  protecting  and  guarding  language — Degeneracy 
of  language  and  morals — Age  of  Charles  II. — Language  part  of  cha¬ 
racter — Arnold’s  Lectures  on  Modern  History— Use  of  disproportion¬ 
ate  words — Origin  of  the  English  language  in  the  North — Classical 
and  romantic  languages — Saxon  element  of  our  language — Its  su¬ 
periority — The  Bible  idiom — Structure  of  sentences — Prepositions 
at  the  end  of  most  vigorous  sentences — Composite  sentences,  and 
the  Latin  element, — Alliteration — Grandeur  of  sentences  in  old 
writers — Modern  short  sentences — Junius — Macaulay — No  peculiar 
poetic  diction — Doctor  Franklin's  rules — Shakspeare’s  matchless 
words — Wordsworth’s  sonnet — Byron — Landor — Coleridge’s  Chris- 
tabel — “The  Song  in  the  Mind” — Hood — The  Bridge  of  Sighs. 

The  subject  which  I  propose  for  this  evening’s  lecture 
is  the  study  of  the  powers  of  the  English  language  in 
prose  and  verse.  My  desire  to  say  something  on  this  sub¬ 
ject  has  been  prompted  by  the  conviction  that  some  atten¬ 
tion  to  it  will  increase  our  enjoyment  of  books,  and  will  io 
fact  give  the  reader  a  superadded  pleasure.  In  our  reading, 
we  are  very  apt  to  content  ourselves  with  the  reception  of 
such  thoughts  and  feelings  as  pass  into  our  minds  from 
the  silent  page,  unheeding  the  medium  through  which 


F 


*  January  17,  1850. 
8 


8a 


58 


LECTURE  THIRD. 


they  reach  us;  indeed,  often,  the  purer  and  more  excellent 
the  style,  tho  less  conscious  are  we  of  its  merits,  so  trans¬ 
parently  does  it  let  the  writer’s  thoughts  and  emotions 
pass  through  it.  -We  think  of  what  is  said  or  written, 
and  feel  it,  but  not  how  it  is  said  or  written :  while  the 
power  which  an  author’s  meaning  has  upon  our  minds  is 
intimately  blended  with  the  powTer  his  language  exercises 
over  us,  of  the  latter  we  scarce  have  a  conscious  recog¬ 
nition.  Does  not  every  one  know  how  differently  the  same 
thing  said  in  different  ways  affects  us  ?  We  welcome  it,  per¬ 
haps,  in  one  case,  and  we  repel  it  in  the  other.  There 
shall  be  in  one  man’s  language  an  air  of  truth,  of  earnest¬ 
ness,  and  reality,  which  will  gain  assent  to  what  he  tells 
us,  while  the  same  thing  told  in  other  words  will  sound 
vain  and  unreal.  There  is  wondrous  agency  of  power  and 
beauty  in  language,  a  winning  witchery  in  words — grandly 
and  beautifully  so  in  our  English  speech.  I  desire  to 
consider  some  of  the  elements  of  this,  regarded  as  a 
source  of  intellectual  enjoyment.  In  all  intercourse  with 
the  best  writers,  whether  in  prose  or  verse,  our  minds  have, 
no  doubt,  an  unconscious  perception  of  the  goodness  of  the 
style,  just  as  we  have  unconscious  freedom  of  breath  in  a 
pure  atmosphere ;  but  if  the  perception  of  style  be  made 
reflective,  it  may  come  to  have  too  much  of  consciousness 
in  it :  we  may  come  to  think  too  much  of  the  instrument, 
and  too  little  of  the  music;  to  be  too  critical  of  our  own 
emotions  of  delight.  I  have,  therefore,  some  apprehen¬ 
sions  that  in  attempting  any  thing  like  an  analytical  expo¬ 
sition  of  the  enjoyment  of  language,  considered  simply  as 
an  organ  of  expression,  it  may  prove  a  little  too  much  like 
parsing  our  pleasure.  The  happy,  healthful-breathing 
asks  for  no  analysis  of  the  air;  the  mountain-spring  is 


THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


87 


quaffed  without  thought  of  what  science  can  tell  of  its 
components.  In  treating  the  powers  of  the  English  lan¬ 
guage  in  prose  and  verse,  I  should  like,  without  vexing  it 
with  comment,  or  criticism,  or  analysis,  but  simply  sound¬ 
ing  it,  to  show  what  an  instrument  it  has  been  in  the 
hands  of  its  great  masters. 

I  wish,  however,  to  accomplish  something  more.  At 
the  same  time,  on  an  occasion  like  this,  and  within  the 
limits  of  one  lecture,  it  would  not  be  practicable  to  enter 
into  technical  details  of  either  the  history  or  the  philology 
of  our  language.  I  propose,  therefore,  to  give  a  didactic 
character  to  this  lecture,  rather  by  making  it  suggestive 
of  the  interest  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  study  of  the 
language,  by  noticing  some  of  its  characteristics,  and  the 
applications  of  the  philosophy  of  language  which  it  serves 
to  illustrate.  Avoiding  technical  and  recondite  points  of 
philology,  I  aim  at  treating  the  subject  according  to  the 
universality  of  the  interest  it  has,  so  as  to  show  how 
the  culture  of  it  comes  home  to  everybody,  and  how  it  is 
in  the  power  of  each  one  of  us  to  awaken  it  into  more 
action. 

The  history  of  the  language,  its  origin  and  progress,  the 
principles  of  English  philology,  and  the  laws  of  English 
metre,  are  subjects  of  deep  interest  and  demand  careful 
study,  and  a  different  kind  of  attention  from  what  I  have 
any  right,  to  ask  from  you.  I  propose,  therefore,  rather 
to  notice  and  exemplify  some  of  the  leading  characteristics 
of  the  language,  so  as  to  awaken  into  more  active  and  in¬ 
telligent  consciousness  our  enjoyment  of  it,  so  as  to  form 
this,  among  our  other  habits  of  reading;  to  have  an  eye 
and  a  feeling  for  the  fitness  of  the  words,  their  power, 
their  beauty,  their  simplicity,  and  truthfulness;  to  fin^ 


88 


LECTURE  THIRD. 


ourselves,  in  reading  a  wise  and  good  book,  often  pausing, 
in  silent  thankfulness  and  delight,  as  we  think  aud  feel 
what  glorious  apparel  the  author’s  wise  thought  or  good 
feeling  hath  arrayed  itself  in — with  what  majesty  or  loveli¬ 
ness  of  speech  or  song  the  mind  makes  music  for  itself  in 
the  words  in  which  it  is  embodied  —  so  that  the  thought 
and  the  words  receive  strength  and  beauty  from  each 
other.  Of  that  connection  which  exists  between  our 
thoughts  and  feelings,  and  the  words  we  clothe  them  in, 
of  their  mutual  relation  and  reaction,  I  cannot  now  speak 
further,  than  to  say  that  the  more  we  reflect  on  our  own 
inner  nature,  and  on  the  wondrous  powers  of  words,  the 
better  we  shall  feel  and  understand  that  relation,  perceiv¬ 
ing  how  words  seem  to  dwell  midway  between  the  corpo¬ 
real  and  incorporeal — a  connection  between  our  spiritual 
and  material  being. 

The  simple  suggestion  of  this  deep  significancy  of  lan¬ 
guage,  and  its  relation  to  man’s  spiritual  nature,  may  per¬ 
haps,  in  some  measure,  correct,  or,  at  least,  startle  that 
error  of  looking  upon  this  whole  subject  as  a  mere  mat¬ 
ter  of  rhetoric  and  grammar,  a  superficial  study  of  style, 
and  therefore  having  claim  upon  the  rhetorician  rather 
than  on  the  man — on  art  rather  than  on  humanity,  not 
reflecting  on  the  divine  origin  of  language ;  that  speech, 
even  more  than  reason,  distinguishes  man  from  the  brute; 
and  that  the  two  powers,  in  their  mysterious  union,  lift 
him  out  of  barbarism.  Whatever  it  may  be,  whether  the 
rude  and  imperfect  speech  of  the  savage,  articulate  words 
with  no  help  of  written  language,  or  whether  it  be  the 
copious  and  refined  language  of  civilized  nations,  there  iSj 
all  the  earth  over,  the  duty  of  loyalty,  thoughtful  loyalty 
if  possible,  to  the  mother-tongue. 


THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


89 


The  universal  duty  rests  on  us,  and  let  us  see  vrliat 
special  obligations  are  due  to  our  English  speech.  That 
speech  runs  the  career  of  the  race  that  uses  it,  and  the 
speed  and  the  spread  of  that  career  have,  perhaps,  had 
more  help  from  the  speech  than  philosophy  has  dreamed 
of.  Little  more  than  two  hundred  years  ago,  Lord 
Bacon,  speaking  of  his  Essays,  said,  “  I  do  conceive  that 
the  Latin  volumes  of  them,  being  in  the  universal  lan 
guage,  may  last  as  long  as  books  last.”  He  seems  to 
have  had  no  such  assurance  for  his  insular  Euglish  lan¬ 
guage.  Somewhat  later,  it  needed  Milton’s  filial  and 
loyal  affection  for  his  mother-tongue  to  give  it  a  share 
with  the  Latin  in  his  prose-writings.*^  A  poet,  a  conterrr- 

*  As  recently  as  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  Hume  expostu¬ 
lated  with  Gibbon  on  his  use  of  the  French  instoad  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish  language:  “Why,”  said  he  to  him,  “why  do  you  compose  in 
French,  aud  carry  fagots  to  the  wood,  as  Horace  says  with  regard  to 
those  Romans  who  wrote  in  Greek?  I  grant  that  you  have  a  like 
motive  to  those  Romans,  and  adopt  a  language  more  generally  dif¬ 
fused  than  your  own  native  tongue;  hut  have  you  not  remarked  the 
fate  of  those  two  ancient  languages  in  following  ages?  The  Latin, 
though  then  less  celebrated  and  confined  to  more  narrow  limits,  has, 
in  some  measure,  outlived  the  Greek,  and  is  now  become  generally 
understood  by  men  of  letters.  Let  the  French,  therefore,  triumph  in 
the  present  diffusion  of  their  tongue.  Our  solid  and  increasing  esta¬ 
blishments  in  America,  where  tee  need  less  dread  the  inundation  of  bar¬ 
barians,  promise  a  superior  stability  and  duration  to  the  English 
language.” — Burton’s  Life  of  Hume,  vol.  ii.  p.  411.  II.  R. 

Yet  Hume,  in  the  second  edition  of  his  “  History  of  the  Stuarts,” 
expunged  the  following  passage.  Speaking  of  America,  he  had  said 
“  The  seeds  of  many  a  noble  state  have  been  sown  in  climates  kept 
desolate  by  the  wild  manners  of  its  ancient  inhabitants,  and  an 
asylum  (is)  secured  in  that  solitary  world  for  liberty  and  science, 
if  ever  the  spreading  of  unlimited  empire  or  the  inroad  of  barbarous 
nations  should  again  extinguish  them  in  this  turbulent  and  restlesr 
hemisphere.” — Id.  vol.  ii.  p.  74.  W.  3.  R. 


8* 


»0 


LECTURE  TIIIRD. 


porary  and  friend  of  Shakspeare,  feelingly  lamented  the 
limits  of  the  English  language  : 

“  Oh  that  the  Ocean  did  not  bound  our  style 
Within  these  strict  and  narrow  limits  so, 

But  that  the  melody  of  our  sweet  isle 
Might  now  be  heard  to  Tiber,  Arne,  and  Po, 

That  they  may  know  how  far  Thames  doth  outgo 
The  music  of  declined  Italy!”* 

Such  was  the  lament  of  him,  the  purity  and  simplicity 
of  whose  style  won  for  him  the  title  of  the  “  well-lan- 
guaged  Daniel.’'  In  one  mood,  he  speaks  of  England  as 

“  This  little  point,  this  scarce-discovered  isle, 

Thrust  from  the  world,  with  whom  our  speech  unknown 
Made  never  traffic  of  our  style.” 

Again,  however,  with  truer  and  more  hopeful  vision,  he 
exclaims, 

- “  Who  knows  whither  we  may  vent 

The  treasure  of  our  tongue  ?  To  what  strange  shores 
This  gain  of  our  best  glory  will  be  sent 
T’  enrich  unknowing  nations  with  our  stores? 

What  worlds  in  the  yet  unformod  Occident 
May  come  refined  with  th’  accents  that  are  ours  ?” 

This  was  the  poet’s  vision,  larger  than  even  the  imagina¬ 
tive-reason  of  the  philosopher  Bacon  counted  on.  This 
was  not  three  centuries  ago,  and  now  the  Island-lan¬ 
guage  girdles  the  earth.  Soon  after  the  poet’s  heart 
gave  forth  its  hope,  English  words  began  to  find  a 
home  in  the  West,  close  begirt,  however,  with  the  fierce 
discords  of  the  Indian-tongucs :  for  years  and  years 
their  home  was  hemmed  in  within  a  narrow  strip  along 
the  Atlantic,  the  English  and  the  French  languages  hav- 


*  Dedication  of  Cleopatra  to  the  Countess  of  Pembroke. 


THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


81 


ing  a  divided  sway,  when  the  Bourbon  was  strong  enough 
to  hold  the  Canadas,  and  proud  enough  to  adventure 
that  magnificent  scheme  of  colonial  dominion  which  was 
to  stretch  from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  Ohio  and  the 
Mississippi,  leaving  the  Briton  his  scant  foothold  between 
the  mountains  and  the  sea.  The  might  of  the  race  broke 
this  circumscription;  and,  in  our  own  day,  we  have  seen 
this  language  of  ours  span  the  continent,  and  now  it 
gives  a  greeting  on  the  shores  of  the  Pacific  as  well  as 
of  the  Atlantic.  An  earnest  English  author  does  not 
fear  to  predict  that  the  time  will  come  when  the  language 
will  occupy  the  far  South  on  each  side  the  Andes ;  Rio, 
and  Valparaiso,  holding  rivalry  in  the  purity  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish  speech.*  But,  without  venturing  into  the  uncertain¬ 
ties  of  the  future,  see  how  our  language  has  an  abode, 
fir  and  wide,  in  the  islands  of  the  earth,  and  how,  in 
India,  it  has  travelled  northward  till  it  has  struck  the 
ancient  but  abandoned  path  of  another  European  lan¬ 
guage — one  of  the  great  languages  of  the  world’s  history 
— the  path  of  conquest  along  which  Alexander  carried 
Greek  words  into  the  regions  of  the  Indus. 


•  In  Landor’s  Imaginary  Conversations,  written  some  twenty 
years  ago,  William  Penn  is  made  to  say,  “  Whenever  I  see  a  child 
before  me  in  America,  I  fancy  I  see  a  fresh  opening  in  the  wilder¬ 
ness,  and  in  the  opening,  a  servant  of  God,  appointed  to  comfort  and 
guide  me,  ready  to  sit  beside  me  when  my  eyes  grow  dim,  and  able 
to  sustain  me  when  my  feet  are  weary.  Look  forward,  and  behold 
the  children  of  that  child.  Few  generations  are  requisite  to  throw 
upon  their  hinges  the  heavily-barred  portals  of  the  vast  continent .  .  . 
Who  knows  but  a  century  or  two  hence  we  may  look  down  togethor 
on  those  who  are  journeying  in  this  newly-traced  road  toward  the  cities 
and  marts  of  California,  and  who  are  delayed  upon  it  by  meeting 
the  Spaniards  driven  in  troops  from  Mexico  ?”  II.  B 


02 


LECTURE  THIRD. 


Our  language  at  tliis  day  has  a  larger  extent  of  influ¬ 
ence  than  the  Greek,  the  Latin,  or  the  Arabic  ever  had, 
and  its  dominion  is  expanding. 

When  we  contemplate  the  spread  of  tlie^ language,  we 
may  conceive  the  vast  power  which  is  coupled  with  it  and 
we  should  remember  that,  commensurate  with  the  power 
is  the  responsibility,  the  duty  of  cultivating  and  guarding 
it  as  a  possession  and  inheritance,  and  a  trust.  Reflect,  too, 
upon  this,  that  along  with  national  or  individual  degrada¬ 
tion,  there  is  sure  to  come  corruption  of  the  language — 
an  accompaniment  more  than  a  mere  consequence  of  that 
degradation.  The  language  was  vitiated — worse  then  than 
ever — when  the  court  of  Charles  the  Second  scattered  the 
poison  of  its  licentionsness  and  ribaldry.  The  wicked 
and  debased,  who  are  banded  together  in  the  fellowship 
of  crime,  disown  the  common  language  of  their  fellow- 
men,  and  delight  in  a  strange  vocabulary  of  their  own ; 
for  when  they  break  bond  with  the  moral  elements  that 
link  them  to  society,  they  cast  olf  the  language  as  one  of 
the  links.  Words  which  serve  the  wise  and  good  become 
to  the  silly  and  the  sensual  a  burden,  because  they  are 
associated  with  wise  and  good  uses,  such  as  couple  our 
English  speech  with  so  much  good  sense,  lofty  imagin¬ 
ings,  deep  philosophy,  ministrant  in  the  cause  of  free¬ 
dom,  of  duty,  and  of  truth.  Hence  it  has  been  well 
said  that  “A  man  should  love  and  venerate  his  native 
language  as  the  first  of  his  benefactors,  as  the  awakener 
and  stirrer  of  all  his  thoughts,  the  frame  and  mould  and 
rule  of  his  spiritual  being;  as  the  great  bond  and  medium 
of  intercourse  with  his  fellows;  as  the  mirror  in  which  he 
sees  his  own  nature,  and  without  which  he  could  not  even 
commune  with  himself;  as  the  image  in  which  the  wisdom 


93 


TIIE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

of  God  has  chosen  to  reveal  itself  to  him.”*  And  it  is 
a  deep  feeling  of  the  perpetual  power  of  the  associations 
of  our  language,  which  prompts  the  poet’s  words 

We  must  bo  free  or  die,  who  speak  tho  tongue 
That  Shakspeare  spake. 

Now  how  is  the  language  to  be  guarded  and  cultivated  ? 
By  the  thoughtful  and  conscientious  use  of  it  by  every 
one  who  speaks  it.  It  is  not  by  authors  alone,  but  by  each 
man  and  woman  to  whom  it  is  the  mother-tongue,  that 
the  language  is  to  be  preserved  in  its  purity  and  power; 
by  each  one  in  his  sphere  and  according  to  his  opportu¬ 
nities.  This  is  a  duty,  and  the  fulfilment  of  it  is  of 
deeper  moment  than  many  are  aware  of.  It  is  not  enough 
thought  of,  that  “accuracy  of  style  is  near  akin  to  vera¬ 
city  and  truthful  habits  of  mind,”  and  to  sincerity  and 
earnestness  of  character. f  “  Language,”  observes  a  great 
master  of  it — “  Language  is  part  of  man’s  character.”! 
You  may,  I  believe,  easily  prove  the  truth  of  this  by 
familiar  observation,  discovering  the  physiognomy  that  is 
in  speech  as  well  as  in  the  face.  You  will  find  one  man’s 
words  are  earnest  of  sincerity,  straightforwardness  of 
character,  fair  dealing,  genuine  and  deep  feeling,  true 
manliness,  true  womanliness,  symbolized  in  the  words 
You  will  perceive  in  another  man’s  speech  signs  of 
a  confused  habit  of  thought,  of  vagueness  and  indi¬ 
rectness  of  purpose.  What  before  was  a  beautiful  ana 
transparent  atmosphere,  through  which  earthly  objects 

*  Guesses  at  Truth,  Part  i.  p.  296. 

f  Coleridge’s  Literary  Remains,  vol.  i.  p.  241. 

J  Landor’s  Imaginary  Conversations.  First  Series.  Demof  tlienos 
and  Eu’mlides,  vol.  i.  p.  232. 


64 


LECTURE  THIRD. 


could  be  distinctly  seen,  or  the  stars  were  brightly  shining, 
is  turned  into  murkiness  and  mist.  Again,  there  are  men 
whose  words,  volubly  uttered  and  with  ample  rotundity 
of  sound,  come  to  us  like  sounds,  and  nothing  more,  sug 
gesting  the  unreality  and  hollowness  of  the  speaker’s 
character ;  and  sometimes,  too,  to  the  thoughtful  observer, 
the  falsity  of  character  will  betray  itself  iu  the  fashion 
of  the  speech.  Dr.  Arnold,  in  his  Lectures  introductory 
to  Modern  History,  (the  best  guide-book  in  our  language 
to  historical  reading  generally,*)  has  shown  how  we  must 
judge  of  an  historian’s  character  by  his  style.  “  If  it  is 
very  heavy  and  cumbrous,  it  indicates  either  a  dull  man 
or  a  pompous  man,  or  at  least  a  slow  and  awkward  man  ; 
if  it  be  tawdry  and  full  of  commonplaces  enunciated  with 
great  solemnity,  the  writer  is  most  likely  a  silly  man  ;  if 
it  be  highly  antithetical  and  full  of  unusual  expressions, 
or  artificial  ways  of  stating  a  plain  thing,  the  writer  is 
clearly  an  affected  man.  If  it  be  plain  and  simple,  always 
clear,  but  never  eloquent,  the  writer  may  be  a  very  sensi¬ 
ble  man,  but  is  too  hard  and  dry  to  be  a  very  great  man. 
If  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  always  eloquent,  rich  in  illus¬ 
trations,  and  without  the  relief  of  simple  and  great  pass¬ 
ages,  we  must  admire  the  writer’s  genius  in  a  very  high 
degree,  but  we  may  fear  that  he  is  too  continually  excited 
to  have  attained  to  the  highest  wisdom,  for  that  is  ne¬ 
cessarily  calm.  In  this  manner  the  mere  language  of  an 


*  Mr  Roed’s  edition  of  Arnold’s  Lectures,  with  notes,  appeared  in 
America  in  1S45  ;  and  for  tho  memory  of  that  remarkable  man  he 
felt  and  expressed — as  will  be  often  seen  in  these  Lectures- — an  almost 
filial  respect.  Some  of  the  happiest  hours  of  tho  last  months  of  Mr. 
Reed’s  life  were  passed  at  Foxhow,  in  tho  society  of  Mrs.  Arnold,  her 
children,  aud  grandchildren.  W.  B  R. 


THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


95 


historian  will  furnish  us  with  something  of  a  key  to  his 
mind,  and  will  tell  us,  or  at  least  give  us  cause  to  pre¬ 
sume,  in  what  his  main  strength  lies,  and  in  what  he  is 
deficient.”  The  same  method  of  observation,  let  me  add, 
will  not  unfrequently  furnish  us  with  a  key  to  the  cha¬ 
racters  of  other  authors  beside  the  historians,  and  also 
of  men  and  women  who  are  not  authors,  but  our  ordinary 
companions  in  life. 

According  to  this  view  of  the  subject,  the  first  study 
of  style  begins  not  with  the  words,  as  the  tongue  articu¬ 
lates  them  or  the  hand  writes  them,  but  it  begins  here, 
at  the  heart,  and  works  upward  and  outward  from  that. 
The  philosophy  and  art  of  language  come  afterward. 
Supposing  the  moral  qualifications  to  exist — I  mean  sin¬ 
cerity,  truthfulness,  freedom  from  affectation  or  vanity, 
earnestness — then  in  the  next  place  it  is  important  to 
associate  a  certain  conscientiousness  in  the  use  of  speech, 
so  that  it  shall  correspond  to  something  within  us.  I  do 
not  mean  that  we  are  to  sacrifice  the  naturalness  of  speech 
to  a  perpetual  pedantry;  that  we  should  be  ambitious  of 
being  such  rigid  purists  as  to  break  the  liberty  and  spirit 
of  a  living  language  by  the  weight  of  too  much  authority; 
that  we  should  fetter  the  easy  grace  of  colloquial  speech 
with  sad  formality,  as  Charles  Lamb  complains  of  in  the 
conversation  of  the  Scotch,  when  he  said,  “  Their  affirma¬ 
tions  have  the  sanctity  of  an  oath.”  But  there  may  be 
somewhat  more  of  heed  in  our  use  of  language  than  wo 
do  pay  to  it,  without  running  into  any  thing  so  odious  as 
pedantry;  and  indeed  cultivated  conversation  not  unfre¬ 
quently  turns  to  these  topics  of  language,  and  in  a  casual 
and  familiar  way  will  treat  them  most  agreeably  and  intelli¬ 
gently,  so  that  we  may  correct  an  inaccuracy  of  diction  o^ 


96 


LECTURE  THIRL. 


of  pronunciation,  which  we  might  have  remained  uncon¬ 
scious  of,  but  for  an  interchange  of  views  in  such  com¬ 
panionship.  In  this  way,  we  may  do  much  for  one  another 
by  a  fellowship  of  loyalty  to  the  language. 

Besides  the  vice  of  using  words  without  thoughts  or 
feelings  to  correspond  to  them,  there  is  another  fault  which 
would  be  chastened  by  a  little  more  conscientiousness  in 
our  expressions;  I  mean  a  propensity  very  common — some¬ 
what  more  so,  perhaps,  to  one  sex  (I  will  not  say  which) 
than  the  other — to  employ  words  of  force  disproportionate 
to  the  occasion,  especially  in  the  expression  of  feelings 
either  agreeable  or  the  reverse.  Something  which  is 
simply  pleasing  is  described  as  “delightful”  or  “charm¬ 
ing;”  or  that  which  is  disagreeable  or  unsightly  or  dis¬ 
cordant,  is  spoken  of  as  “  dreadful,”  “  terrible,”  “  horri¬ 
ble,”  or  “  awful.”*  This,  no  doubt,  is  often  merely  the 
exaggeration  of  innocent  exuberance  of  spirits,  and  the 
words  are  received,  therefore,  with  large  allowances.  It 
in  some  measure  comes  of  poverty  or  carelessness  of 
speech,  or  both,  somewhat  in  the  way  that  oaths  are 
uttered  sometimes,  (we  may  charitably  believe,)  not  as  a 
purposed  profanity,  but  for  lack  of  words  that  are  strong 
without  the  stain  of  wickedness  upon  them.  But  besides 
being  alien  from  accuracy  and  a  truthful  habit  of  mind, 
the  habitual  use  of  disproportioned  language  is  attended 
with  this  disadvantage,  our  strong  words  are  all  wasted 
before  they  are  wanted ;  if,  for  instance  there  comes  an 
occasion  calling  for  deep  and  hearty  hatred,  and  also  for 


•  In  another  relation,  one  sees  the  constant  misuse  of' this  word,  in 
its  strict  employment  by  Barrow,  when  he  speaks  of  “  a  devout  affection 
of  hea~t,  an  aweful  sense  of  mind.”  Barrow,  vol.  v.  p.  605.  W.  B.  R. 


THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


97 


an  earnest  expression  of  it,  our  vocabulary  is  exhausted ; 
our  armory  is  despoiled  by  our  own  extravagance;  we 
have  been  shooting  our  arrows  in  the  air,  and  when  we 
truly  need  them,  our  quiver  is  empty.* 

Let  us  now  look  at  some  of  the  characteristics  of  the 
English  language  as  an  instrument  of  expression  for 
those  who  recognise  the  duty  of  the  thoughtful  use  of  it. 
He  will  the  better  understand  and  use  it  who  keeps  in 
mind  that  it  belongs  to  the  family  of  the  Northern  lan¬ 
guages.  Our  English  speech  is  to  be  traced  beyond 
England  into  the  forests  of  Germany  and  to  the  shores 
of  the  Northern  Ocean;  the  dialect,  that  was  in  time  to 
grow  into  our  English  language,  was  carried  fourteen  hun¬ 
dred  years  ago  to  the  island  from  the  Teutonic  region  of  the 
continent. f  Our  speech  holds  not  its  genealogy  from  the 
cultivated  languages  of  the  South;  they  had  done  their  ap¬ 
pointed  work — the  languages  of  Greece  and  Rome — and 
the  English  language,  for  the  fulfilment  of  its  destiny,  had 
another  birth,  and  was  long  kept  aloof  from  them  It  was 
to  have  a  fresher  and  purer  spring  than  in  the  languages 


*  There  is  an  opposite  fault,  which  we  have  caught  from  England, 
but  which  an  English  writer,  mindful  of  the  language,  has  con¬ 
demned  “  as  that  stupid  modern  vulgarism,  by  which  we  use  the  word 
‘  nice’  to  denote  almost  every  mode  of  approbation  for  almost  every 
variety  of  quality,  .  .  .  from  sheer  poverty  of  thought,”  or  fear  of 
“saying  any  thing  definite.”  Julius  Charles  Hare,  Philological  Mu¬ 
seum.  H.  R. 

•f-  It  was  a  slow  and  various  transmission  which  carried  the  lan¬ 
guage  which  was  to  grow  into  modern  English  over  from  the  conti¬ 
nent  to  the  island ;  for  there  are  reckoned  six  several  migrations  of 
different  divisions  of  the  Saxon  race,  extending  through  almost  ex¬ 
actly  a  century,  bearing  with  them  their  various  dialects  for  future 
formation  into  ono  great  language.  H.  R. 

9 


9S 


LECTURE  THIRD 


which  were  identified  with  the  degeneracy  of  the  nations 
that  spoke  them.  It  was  to  become  the  voice  of  another 
form  of  national  character,  and  of  a  different  and  deepei 
spirituality,  than  that  which  belonged  to  the  sunny  re 
gions  of  the  south.  The  contrast  between  what  has  been 
called  the  “classical  mind”  and  the  “romantic  mind,”  is 
traceable  in  the  respective  languages,  and  has  been  beau¬ 
tifully  illustrated  by  the  names  of  “  good  omen,”  which 
the  Greeks  delighted  in,  and  the  names  of  “  dark  mys¬ 
tery,”  which  were  congenial  to  those  who  dwelt  in  the 
gloom  of  the  North. 


The  sunny  wisdom  of  the  Greeks 
All  o’er  the  earth  is  strewed : 

On  every  dark  and  awful  place, 

Rude  hill  and  haunted  wood, 

The  beautiful,  bright  people  left 
A  name  of'omen  good. 

Tboy  would  not  have  an  evil  word 
Weigh  heavy  on  the  breeze ; 

They  would  not  darken  mountain  side 
Nor  stain  the  shining  seas, 

With  names  of  some  disastrous  past; 

The  unwise  witnesses. 

*  *  *  * 

Unlike  the  children  of  romance, 

From  out  whose  spirit  deep 

The  touch  of  gloom  hath  passed  on  glen. 
And  mountain  lake  and  steep; 

On  Devil’s  Bridge  and  Raven’s  Tower 
And  lovelorn  Maiden’s  Leap. 

Who  sought  in  cavern,  wood,  and  dell, 
Where’er  they  could  lay  bare 


T II  E  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


The  path  of  ill,  and  localized 
Terrific  legends  there; 

Leaving  a  hoarse  and  pondrous  name 
To  haunt  the  very  air. 


Not  so  the  radiant-hearted  Greeks, 
Who  hesitated  still 
To  offend  the  blessed  Presences 
Which  oarth  and  ocean  fill  ; 

Whose  tongues,  elsewhere  so  eloquent, 
Stammered  at  words  of  ill. 


All  places,  where  their  presence  was 
Upon  the  fruitful  earth, 

By  kindly  law  were  clasped  within 
The  circlo  of  their  mirth, 

And  in  their  spirits  had  a  new 
And  consecrated  birth.  _ - 


0  bless  them  for  it,  traveller ! 

The  fair-tongued  ancients  bless  ! 
Who  thus  from  land  and  sea  trod  out 
All  footmarks  of  distress; 
Illuminating  earth  with  their 
Own  inward  cheerfulness.* 


In  other  ways  it  might  also  be  shown  that  the  genius 
of  the  Northern  character  gave  utterance  to  itself  differ¬ 
ently  from  the  races  of  the  South.  The  beginning  of  a 
just  knowledge  of  the  English  language  is  an  accurate 
sense  of  its  Northern  origin.  The  date  of  that  origin  can¬ 
not  be  fixed;  but  certainly  the  language  is  a  growth  out 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  speech,  however  important  may  be 
the  additions  it  has  received  elsewhere.  Of  the  38,000 
words,  of  which  it  is  reckoned  the  English  language  con¬ 
sists,  23,000  are  of  Saxon  origin — near  five-eighths  of  it; 


*  Faber’s  Styrian  Lake  and  Other  Poems,  p.  318. 


wo 


LECTURE  THIRD. 


a  proportion  which  must  needs  control,  to  a  great  extent, 
the  grammatical  laws  of  the  language ;  that  is,  along  with 
the  multitude  of  Northern  words,  there  must  be  much  of 
Northern  method,  and  in  that  method,  baffling,  as  it  often 
does,  the  technical  systems  of  grammar,  we  are  to  look  for 
the  idioms.  It  is  a  remark  of  one  of  the  most  nervous 
authors  of  our  day,  Walter  Savage  Landor:  “  Every  good 
writer  has  much  idiom ;  it  is  the  life  and  spirit  of  language; 
and  none  ever  entertained  a  fear  or  apprehension  that 
strength  and  sublimity  were  to  be  lowered  and  weakened 
by  it.  .  .  .  Nations  in  a  state  of  decay  lose  their  idiom, 
which  loss  is  always  precursory  to  that  of  freedom.”*  And 
Coleridge  exclaimed,  “If  men  would  only  say  what  they 
have  to  say  in  plain  terms,  how  much  more  eloquent 
would  they  be!”  But  it  is  the  simple  Saxon-Euglish 
words,  and  the  Saxon  way  of  putting  them  together,  that 
people  will  not  be  content  with.  There  is  forever  a  push¬ 
ing  away  from  the  purest  English,  and  from  the  genuine 
idioms ;  and,  what  is  noticeable,  it  is  the  half-educated 
who  are  always  most  ambitious  of  long  words  and  high- 
sounding  combinations  of  them.  There  is  not  pomp 
enough  for  them  in  our  short,  often  one-syllable  Saxon 
speech.  Observe  what  a  propensity  there  is  to  substitute 
the  word  “  individual,”  (and  unfitly  too)  for  such  a  clear, 
simple,  short  word  as  “  man.”  It  seems  to  be  employed 
as  a  sort  of  midway  expression  between  “  man”  and 
“  gentleman,”  between  “woman”  and  “lady”  as  if  there 
was  not  quite  courtesy  enough  in  the  words  “man”  and 
'*  woman,”  and  a  little  more  than  was  wanted  in  the  other 


*  Imaginary  Conversations,  First  Series.  Conversation  xiv.,  voi.  i 

p.  244. 


/ 


TUE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


101 


words.  It  is  in  this  way  that  there  may  be  a  false  refine¬ 
ment,  a  mistaken  delicacy,  that  is  fatal  to  the  primitive 
simplicity  and  nervousness  of  language.  From  being  too 
dainty  in  our  choice  of  words,  we  come  at  last  to  forfeit 
the  use  of  some  of  the  best  of  them.  Again,  I  do  verily 
believe,  that  the  good  word  “ begin ,”  is  in  danger  of 
becoming  obsolete,  so  that,  after  a  while,  it  will  sound 
quaint  and  antiquated;  and  yet  it  is  both  as  old  as 
the  language,  and  as  fresh  as  to-day’s  talk,  known  in  all 
the  eras  of  the  language,  sanctioned  by  all  possible  autho¬ 
rity,  grave  and  formal  as  well  as  familiar  and  homely,  and 
expressive  of  all  that  is  needed.  Really  some  people  seem 
to  shun  it  as  much  as  if  it  were  indelicate,  or,  at  the  least, 
a  vulgarism.  Listen  almost  where  you  will,  and  nowa¬ 
days  nobody  hardly  is  heard  of  as  “  beginning,”  for  every¬ 
thing  is  “  commenced.”  But  what  a  shock  would  our 
instinct  of  language  and  some  of  our  best  associations 
receive,  if  this  change  could  creep  on  to  the  pages 
of  our  English  version  of  the  Bible,  instead  of  reading 
“In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and  the 
earth” — “  the  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning  of  wis¬ 
dom” — “In  the  beginning  was  the  Word.”  Truly  did 
Coleridge  say,  that  “Intense  study  of  the  Bible  will  keep 
any  writer  from  being  vulgar  in  point  of  style.”*  And  an 
eloquent  living  divine  has  asked,  “Who  can  estimate  the 
grandeur,  the  depth,  the  expansive  power,  which  our  lan¬ 
guage  and  the  German  have  derived  from  the  national 
liturgical  offices,  as  well  as  from  the  national  translation 
of  the  Scriptures  ?”  Let  those  who  crave  a  statelier 
word  than  “begin,”  learn  that  even  Milton,  with  all  his 


G 


*  Table  Talk,  vol.  i.  p.  1T7. 
9* 


102 


LECTURE  THIRD. 


erudite  diction,  never,  throughout  all  his  poems,  I  believe, 
uses  the  words  “ commence ”  or  “ commencement'”  and  let 
them  observe  how  Shakspeare  perpetually  makes  his 
beautiful  uses  of  the  simple  English  word,  and  is  even 
content  to  make  it  shorter  and  simpler  yet,  as  in  the 
touching  line  that  tells  so  much  of  the  guilt-wasted  soul 
t>f  Macbeth — 

“I  ’gin  to  grow  a-weary  of  the  sun.” 

Let  me  exemplify  this  tendency  away  from  the  native 
character  of  the  language  in  the  structure  of  sentences  as 
well  as  in  the  choice  of  words.  I  refer  to  the  frequent 
abandonment  of  that  peculiarly  characteristic  arrange¬ 
ment  which  puts  a  preposition  at  the  end  of  a  sen¬ 
tence.  This  is  eminently  an  English  idiom,  and  nothing 
but  prejudice  arising  from  misapplied  analogy  with  the 
Southern  languages,  and  the  propensity  to  make  style 
more  formal  and  less  idiomatic,  could  ever  have  led  any 
one  to  suppose  this  construction  to  be  wrong.  The  false 
fastidiousness  which  shuns  a  short  particle  at  the  end  of  a 
sentence,  is  fatal  often  to  a  force  which  belongs  to  the 
language  with  its  primal  character.  The  superiority  of  the 
idiom  I  am  referring  to,  could  be  proved  beyond  question 
by  examples  of  the  best  writing  in  all  the  eras  of  the  lan¬ 
guage.  As  the  eiTor  is  pretty  wide  spread,  let  me  cite  a 
few  of  these.  Lord  Bacon  says,  “  Houses  are  built  to  live 
in,  and  not  to  look  on and  again,  “  Revenge  is  a  kind 
of  wild  justice,  which  the  more  a  man’s  nature  runs  to, 
the  more  ought  law  to  weed  it  out.”  Any  attempt  to 
transpose  these  separable  prepositions  would  destroy  the 
strength  and  the  terseness  of  the  sentences.  Even  a 
stronger  example  occurs  in  a  passage  in  one  of  the  great 
English  divines,  a  contemporary  of  Bacon’s:  “Hath  God 


TIIE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


103 


a  name  to  swear  by  ?  .  .  .  Hath  God  a  name  to  curse  by  ? 
Hath  God  a  name  to  blaspheme  by  ?  and  bath  God  no 
name  to  pray  by?”*  The  opening  sentence  of  one  of  Mr. 
Burke’s  most  celebrated  speeches  is — “The  times  we  live 
in  have  been  distinguished  by  extraordinary  events;” 
Dr.  Franklin’s  phrase,  with  its  twenty-five  Saxon  and  four 
Latin  words :  .  .  William  Coleman,  then  a  merchant’s 

clerk  about  my  age,  who  had  the  coolest,  clearest  head, 
the  best  heart,  and  the  exactest  morals  of  any  man 
I  ever  met  with.”  And  observe  such  a  sentence  as  this 
of  Arnold’s,  “  Knowledge  must  be  worked  for,  studied 
fox',  thought  for;  and,  more  than  all,  it  must  be  prayed 
for.”f  I  l’eally  think  that  people,  in  writing  and  speak¬ 
ing,  might  get  over  their  fear  of  finding  a  preposition  at 
the  end  of  their  sentences 


But  it  is  not  only  the  Saxon  side  of  the  language  that  is 
to  be  prized  and  cultured :  its  glory  is,  in  fact,  its  wondei'- 
fully  composite  character,  the  Anglo-Norman  element,  as 
well  as  the  Anglo-Saxon,  contributing  to  its  copiousness  and 
power;  and  there  is  no  more  pleasing  study  in  language, 
than  to  observe  how,  in  all  the  best  writers,  these  elements 
are  harmoniously  combined.  One  of  the  boldest  instances 
of  this  has  been  noticed  in  these  lines  in  Macbeth,  in 
which  two  very  long  words  are  blended  with  short  ones 
with  singular  effect : 

“Will  all  great  Neptune’s  ocean  wash  this  hlood 
Clean  from  my  hand  ?  No  !  this,  my  hand  will  rather 
The  multitudinous  sea  incarnardine, 

Making  the  green — one  red.”J 

*  Donne’s  Sermon  on  the  Penitential  Psalms,  vol.  vi.  p.  380. 

f  Arnold’s  Miscellaneous  Works,  p.  234.  On  the  Education  of  the 
Middle  Classes.  Also,  Hallam’s  Literaturo  of  Europe,  vol.  iv.  535. 

J  A  less  familiar  line  occurs  to  me  where,  at  the  end  of  a  scries  of 


104 


LECTURE  TfllKP. 


A  well-known  line  in  the  same  tragedy  reminds  me  of 
another  antique  quality  which  has  been  curiously  retained, 
long  after  the  formal  practice  of  it  has  been  disused,  and 
now  prevails  peculiarly  in  all  vigorous  English  prose,  as 
well  as  poetry :  I  refer  to  the  use  of  alliteration ,  as  de¬ 
rived  from  some  of  the  forms  of  early  poetry  in  England. 
If  you  will  take  the  pains  to  observe  it,  you  will  probably 
be  surprised  to  find  to  what  an  extent  it  is  employed  in 
English  literature,  both  now  and  formerly.  It  is  a 
curious  study  of  the  language  to  trace  the  power  that  lies 
in  the  repetition  of  a  letter  in  a  succession  of  words ;  as 
when  Macbeth  says, 

“Ay,  now,  I  see,  'tis  trae: 

For  the  blood-boltercd  Banquo  smiles  upon  me. 

And  points  at  them  for  his.®' 

In  the  versions  attached  to  Retsch’s  Outlines  in  French, 
Italian,  Spanish,  and  German,  no  one  of  the  languages  at¬ 
tempts  this  tremendous  alliteration.  I  cannot  pause  upon 
this  quality  of  style  further  than  to  remark,  that  he  who 
studies  the  language,  will  find  an  interest  in  observing  how 
beautiful  and  striking,  and,  indeed,  how  natural,  this  ap¬ 
parently  artificial  process  becomes  in  the  hands  of  a  master 

Saxon  words,  a  Latin  word  is  brought  in  with  singular  power.  In 
the  second  part  of  Henry  VI.,  Suffolk  says  to  Queen  Margaret, 

“For  where  thou  art,  there  is  the  world  itself 
With  every  several  pleasure  in  the  world  ; 

And  where  thou  art  not,  desolation."  W.  B.  It 

*  Or  in  the  incantation, 

“the  salt-sea  shark; 

Root  of  hemlock  digg’d ;  i’  the  dark. 

Finger  of  birth-strangled  babe. 

Ditch-delivered  by  a  drab.”  W.  B.  R. 


THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


108 


of  the  language.  The  mere  affinity  of  initial  letters  is  also 
one  of  the  mental  associations  which  not  unfrequently 
gives  the  fittest  word  to  be  found.* 

In  describing  the  English  language  as  a  composite  lan¬ 
guage,  we  get,  perhaps,  a  wrong  notion  of  its  being 
made  up  by  the  union  of  two  dialects,  the  Saxon  and 
the  Norman.  The  truth  rather  seems  to  be,  that  the 
Anglo-Saxon  language  has  displayed  the  same  powers  of 
acquisition  as  have  distinguished  the  race,  and  has  thus 
enlarged  the  domain  by  conquest,  and  appropriation,  and 
annexation,  retaining,  however,  withal,  its  essentially  Teu¬ 
tonic  character.  Its  early  acquisitions  from  abroad  were 
words  of  French  or  Southern  birth,  which  became  part 
of  the  natural  spoken  language,  the  copiousness  and 
power  of  which  were  thus  admirably  increased.  A  single 
specimen  will  show  that  this  is  a  copiousness  giving  not 

*  “The  Northern  languages,”  remarks  Mr.  Henry  Taylor,  (Notes 
on  Books,  p.  132,)  “have  often  been  reproached  for  their  excess  in 
consonants,  guttural,  sibilant,  or  mute,  and  it  has  been  concluded,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  that  languages  in  which  vowels  and  liquids  predomi¬ 
nate  must  be  better  adapted  to  poetry,  and  that  the  most  mellifluous 
language  must  be  also  the  most  melodious.  .  .  This  is  but  a  rash  and 
ill-considered  condemnation  of  our  native  tongue.  .  .  In  dramatic  verse, 
more  particularly,  our  English  combinations  of  consonants  are  in¬ 
valuable,  not  only  for  the  purpose  of  reflecting  grace  and  softness  by 
contrast,  or  accelerating  the  verse  by  a  momentary  detention,  but  also 
in  giving  expression  to  the  harsher  passions,  and  in  imparting  keen¬ 
ness  and  significaney  to  the  language  of  discrimination,  and  especially 
to  that  of  scorn.  In  Sbakspeare  for  instance,  what  a  blast  of  sarcasm 
whistles  through  that  word,  “  Thrift,  thrift,  Horatio !”  with  its  one 
vowel  and  five  consonants,  and  then  how  the  verse  runs  on  with  a  low, 
confidential  smoothness,  as  if  to  give  effect  to  the  outbreak  by  the  sub¬ 
sequent  suppression, 

“the  funeral-baked  meats 
Did  coldly  furnish  forth  the  marriage  tables.” 


H.  R. 


106 


LECTURE  THIRD. 


merely  duplicate  words,  but  distinct  expressions  for  deli¬ 
cate  shades  of  meaning.  The  words  “  apt”  and  “Jit” 
might  be  thought  to  differ  only  in  this,  that  the  former  is 
of  Latin  derivation;  but  “apt”  has  an  active  sense,  and 
“Jit”  a  passive  sense — a  distinction  clearly  shown  by 
Shakspeare,  when  the  poisoner  in  the  play  in  Hamlet 
says,  “hands  apt,  drugs  Jit,”  and  by  Wordsworth 

“  Our  hearts  more  apt  to  sympathize 
With  heaven,  our  souls  more  fit  for  future  glory.”'* 

While  the  early  additions  to  the  language  were  fairly 
absorbed  into  it,  and  have  proved  so  valuable,  the  later 
introductions  of  words  of  Latin  or  French  formation  have 
never,  in  like  manner,  become  natural  and  national ;  and 
their  presence  has,  therefore,  been  often  injurious  as  an 
element  not  divested  of  its  foreign  tone. 

In  our  reading  of  English  prose,  it  is  well  worth  while 
to  study  what  has  become  almost  a  lost  art.  I  mean 
what  may  be  called  the  architecture,  as  it  were,  of  a  long 
and  elaborate  sentence,  with  its  continuous  and  well-sus¬ 
tained  flow  of  thought  and  feeling,  and,  however  inter¬ 
woven,  orderly  and  clear.  This  is  to  be  sought  chiefly  in 
the  great  prose-writers  of  former  centuries.  “  Read  that 


*  The  composite  character  of  the  language  thus  provides  us  with  a 
large  class  of  words  not  strictly  synonymous,  but  serving  to  express 
the  most  delicate  shades  of  meaning:  we  have,  for  instance,  the 
words  “feelings”  and  “sentiments,"  at  first  sight  apparently  mere  du¬ 
plicate  words;  but  it  has  been  observed  that  there  is  a  certain  idea  of 
passiveness  connected  with  the  feelings,  which  contrasts  with  the  idea 
of  activity  in  the  word  “  sentiments,”  and  that  the  former  came  down 
to  us  from  the  ruder  and  simpler  Saxon,  and  the  latter  from  the  more 
refined  and  cultivated  Norman.  H.  R. 


THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


107 


page,”  said  Coleridge,  pointing  to  one  of  them  ;  “you  can¬ 
not  alter  one  conjunction  without  spoiling  the  sense.  It 
is  a  linked  strain  throughout.  In  your  modern  books, 
for  the  most  part,  the  sentences  in  a  page  have  the  same 
connection  with  each  other  that  marbles  have  in  a  bag  : 
they  touch  without  adhering.”*  Junius,  waging  his 
fierce,  factious  war,  fought  with  these  short,  pointed  sen¬ 
tences,  piercing  his  foes  with  them  j  and  it  has  been  said 
that  nothing  but  Horne  Tooke  and  a  long  sentence  were 
an  overmatch  for  him ;  and  in  our  day,  Macaulay,  waging 
his  larger  and  more  indiscriminate  war,  deals  so  exclu¬ 
sively  with  the  same  fashion  of  speech,  that  if  you  un¬ 
dertake  to  read  his  history  aloud  your  voice  will  crave  a 
good  old-fashioned,  long  sentence,  as  much  as  your  heart 
may  crave  more  of  the  repose  and  moderation  of  a  deeper 
philosophy  of  history.  This  fashion  of  short  sentences 
is  mischievous,  not  only  as  a  temptation  to  an  indolent 
habit  of  reading,  (for  it  asks  a  much  less  sustained  atten¬ 
tion,)  but  it  is  fatal  to  the  fine  rhythm  which  English 
prose  is  capable  of.  As  I  cannot  pause  to  consider  espe¬ 
cially  the  nature  of  our  prose  rhythm,  I  will  give  what 


*  Coleridge’s  Table  Talk,  vol.  ii.  p.  185. 

One  of  the  grandest  long  sentences  in  our  modern  English  is  the 
opening  passage  of  Mr.  Brougham’s  speech  in  defence  of  Queen 
Caroline.  It  extends  through  twenty-seven  lines.  If  I  were  asked 
to  select  a  sentence  of  perfect  English  formation,  I  should  take  the 
following  from  Miss  Sewell’s  History  of  Greece.  It  dwells  in  my 
mind  like  music: 

“  There  is  little  now  to  be  seen  in  the  plains  of  Olympia  but  a  few 
ruins  of  briek.  The  mountains  stand  as  they  did  in  the  old  times, 
and  trees  flourish  upon  them  year  after  year,  and  the  rivers  flow  in 
the  same  track  ;  but  all  the  great  buildings  and  statues  have  crum¬ 
bled  to  dust,  and  the  valley  is  silent  and  deserted.”  W.  B.  R. 


108 


LECTURE  THIRD. 


is  better,  a  sentence  from  the  pen  of  a  living  divine, 
which  is  an  example  of  true  prose  rhythm,  and  all  pure 
English  words : 

“  The  land  that  is  very  far  off — it  can  be  no  other  than 
the  heavenly  country,  for  love  of  which  God’s  elect  have 
lived  as  strangers  in  the  earth — a  land  far  away,  over  a 
long  path  of  many  years,  up  weary  mountains,  and  through 
deep  broken  ways,  full  of  perils  and  of  pit-falls;  through 
sicknesses  and  weariness,  sorrows  and  burdens,  and  the 
valley  of  the  shadow  of  death ;  world-worn  and  foot-sore, 
they  have  been  faring  forth,  one  by  one,  since  the  world 
began,  'going  and  weeping.’”* 

There  is  no  appearance  of  art  in  this  sentence;  but 
the  highest  art  could  not  more  truly  make  choice  and 
combination  of  its  words. 

I  must  hasten  to  the  powers  of  the  language  in  verse; 
and,  in  the  first  place,  let  me  say  that  it  is  a  happy  trait 
in  our  literature  that  it  has  no  peculiar  poetic  diction. 
Words  that  are  used  in  good  prose  are  not  excluded  from 
poetry,  and  words  which  the  poets  employ  belong  also  to 
our  prose  uses  of  speech  and  writing ;  and  hence  the 
poets  are  the  better  enabled  to  exert  a  perpetual  influence 
in  the  fulfilment  of  their  high  function  of  conservators 
of  the  purity  of  the  language.  Our  prosody,  taking  ac¬ 
cent  rather  than  quantity  for  its  principle,  seldom  if  ever, 
disqualifies  words  on  account  of  their  sound,  whereas  in  the 
Latin,  as  has  been  ascertained,  one  word  out  of  every 
eight  is  excluded  from  its  chief  metres  by  the  rules  of  its 
prosody.  An  analysis  of  a  passage  from  Cicero,  the  ele¬ 
vated  prose  of  the  language,  for  this  purpose,  has  proved 


*  Manning’s  Sermons,  vol.  iii.  p.  432. 


THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


109 


that,  in  fifty  lines,  thirty  words  are  impossible  words  for 
the  most  usual  forms  of  Latin  verse. 

The  study  of  English  poetry,  being  in  closer  affinity 
with  the  prose,  admits  of  an  important  use  in  the  forma¬ 
tion  of  a  good  prose  style.  A  mind  as  earnestly  practi¬ 
cal  as  Dr.  Franklin’s  observed  this,  and  he  recommended 
the  study  of  poetry  and  the  writing  of  verse  for  this  very 
purpose :  it  was  one  of  the  sources  of  bis  own  excellent 
English.  It  is  a  species  of  early  training  for  prose¬ 
writing  which  he  recommended,  having  recognised  it  in 
his  own  case  as  having  given  a  genuine  copiousness  and 
command  of  language.  This  certainly  is  worth  reflection, 
too,  that  all  the  great  English  poets,  Chaucer,  Spenser, 
Shakspeare,  Milton,  Dryden,  Cowper,  Byron,  Southey,  and 
Wordsworth,  have  displayed  high  power  as  prose- writers. 

It  is  sometimes  supposed  that  the  laws  of  metrical  lan¬ 
guage  must,  of  necessity,  produce  a  style  more  or  less 
artificial,  and  therefore  alien  from  prose  uses ;  but  the 
very  opposite  is  the  fact.  The  true  poet  is  always  a  true 
artist,  and  words  are  the  instruments  of  his  art.  The 
laws  of  metre  are  no  bondage  to  him,  but  genial  self-con¬ 
trol  ;  he  asks  less  license  of  language  than  any  one,  and 
the  constraint  of  rhyme  will  often  increase  and  not  lessen 
the  precision  and  clearness  of  expression.  It  is,  in  truth, 
one  of  the  cases  which  prove  the  great  moral  truth,  that 
willing  obedience  gains  for  itself  unwonted  power :  sub¬ 
mitting  to  the  control  of  his  art,  bowing  to  its  laws  with 
happy  loyalty,  the  poet’s  reward  is  the  endowment  of  an 
ampler  command  of  expression  and  of  the  music  of  the 
language.  Verse  and  metre  are  wings,  and  not  fetters,  to 
the  true  poet. 


10 


uo 


LECTURE  THIRD. 


Observe  the  matchless  English  everywhere  in  Shaks 
peare — how  free  it  is  with  all  the  art  that  is  to  be  disco¬ 
vered  in  it ;  how  true  it  is,  and  full  of  beautiful  and  al¬ 
most  familiar  simplicity  -  If,  in  the  recollection  of  any 
passage,  a  word  shall  escape  your  memory,  you  may  hunt 
through  the  thirty-eight  thousand  words  in  the  language, 
and  no  word  shall  fit  the  vacant  place  but  the  one  that 
the  poet  put  there.  Take  that  exquisite  lament  of  the 
banished  Norfolk  over  his  native  English  :  the  words  are 
all  simple,  homely  words,  such  as  anybody  might  use, 
(for  Shakspeare  never  made  his  language  “too  bright  or 
good  for  human  nature’s  daily  food.”)  Notice,  too, 
if  you  can  do  so  without  impairing  the  general  effect, 
that  there  are  in  the  passage  no  fewer  than  eight  alli¬ 
terations  : 

"  A  heavy  sentence,  my  most  sovereign  liege, 

And  all  unlook’d  for  from  your  highness’  mouth; 

A  dearer  merit,  not  so  deep  a  maim 
As  to  be  cast  forth  in  the  common  air. 

Have  I  deserved  at  your  highness’  hand. 

The  language  I  have  learn 'd  these  forty  years. 

My  native  English,  now  I  must  forego : 

And  now  my  tongne's  use  is  to  me  no  more 
Than  an  unstringed  viol  or  a  harp : 

Or  like  a  cunning  instrument  cas’d  up, 

Or,  being  open,  put  into  his  hands, 

That  knows  no  touch  to  tune  the  harmony. 

I  am  too  old  to  fawn  upon  a  nurse. 

Too  far  in  years  to  be  a  pupil  now.’’ 

Ur  iurr-  to  those  beautiful  sentences  in  Coriolanus,  whore 
the  R.  nan  hero,  returning  with  wounds  and  victory, 
is  met  iy  his  exulting  mother  and  his  silent,  weeping 
wife : 


THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


Ill 


“  My  gracious  silence,  hail ! 

Would’st  thou  hare  laugh’d,  had  I  come  loffin’d  home, 

That  weep’st  to  see  me  triumph  ?  Ah,  my  dear. 

Such  eyes  the  widows  in  Corioli  wear. 

And  mothers  that  lack  sons.” 

Or,  to  take  what  is  not  so  much  used  by  Sbakspeare,  the 
rhymed  poetry  in  Love’s  Labour’s  Lost : 

“  These  earthly  godfathers  of  heaven’s  lights, 

That  give  a  name  to  every  fixed  star, 

Have  no  more  profit  of  their  shining  nights 

Than  those  that  walk,  and  wot  not  what  they  are.” 

How  true  is  it  what  Coleridge  said,  “  that  you  might 
as  well  think  of  pushing  a  brick  out  of  a  wall  with  your 
forefinger,  as  attempt  to  remove  a  word  out  of  any  of  the 
finished  passages  of  Shakspeare.”*  / 

To  show  the  wonderful  power  of  expression  that  belongs 
to  poetry,  under  even  the  most  severe  laws  of  verse,  what 
mere  prose-writer  or  reader  would  suppose  it  possible, 
within  the  narrow  limit  of  fourteen  lines,  and  with  all  the 
complex  structure  and  redoubled  rhymes  of  the  sonnet, 
for  a  poet  to  speak  of  no  fewer  than  seven  of  the  illus¬ 
trious  poets  of  modern  Europe,  and  to  touch  upon  their 
characters  and  the  story  of  their  lives ;  and  yet  this  has 
been  achieved,  apparently  without  effort — so  natural  is 
the  flow  of  the  language — in  that  well-known  sonnet  of 
Wordsworth,  wherein  he  at  once  defends  and  illustrates 
that  form  of  composition  : — 

“  Scorn  not  the  Sonnet;  Critic,  you  have  frowned, 

Mindless  of  its  just  honours ;  with  this  key 
Shakspeare  unlock’d  his  heart;  the  melody 
Of  this  small  lute  gave  ease  to  Petrarch's  wound ; 


*  Table  Talk,  vol.  iu,  p.  211. 


112 


LECTURE  TIIIR  D. 


A  thousand  times  this  pipe  did  Tasso  sound; 

With  it  Camoens  soothed  an  exile’s  grief ; 

The  Sonnet  glittered  a  gay  myrtle-leaf 
Amid  the  cypress  with  which  Dante  crowned 
His  visionary  brow;  a  glow-worm  lamp, 

It  cheer’d  mild  Spenser,  called  from  Faery-land 
To  struggle  through  dark  ways,  and  when  a  damp 
Fell  round  the  path  of  Milton,  in  his  hand 

The  thing  became  a  trumpet;  whence  he  blew 
Soul-animating  strains — alas,  too  few  !” 


It  is  the  poets  who  have  best  revealed  the  hidden  har¬ 
mony  that  lies  in  our  short  Saxon-English  words — the 
monosyllabic  music  of  our  language.  This  was  one  of 
the  secrets  of  the  charm  and  the  popularity  of  Lord 
Byron’s  poetry — his  eminently  English  choice  of  words. 
Two  short  passages  of  Mr.  Landor’s  Poems  will  serve  to  show 
the  metrical  effect  of  simple  words  of  one  syllable.  In 
the  sentence  I  am  about  to  quote,  out  of  thirty  such 
words,  there  is  but  one  long  latinized  word — the  rest  are 
nearly  all  monosyllables,  the  last  line  wholly  so : 

“  She  was  sent  forth 

To  bring  that  light  which  never  wintry  blast 
Blows  out,  nor  rain,  nor  snow  extinguishes — 

The  light  that  shines  from  loving  eyes  upon 
Eyes  that  love  back,  till  they  can  see  no  more.’1* 

The  next  will  better  exemplify  the  harmonious  combina¬ 
tion  of  the  simple  English  and  the  classical  or  Southern 
words. 

“Crush  thy  own  heart,  Man  !  but  fear  to  wound 
The  gentler,  that  relies  on  thee  alone, 

By  thee  created,  weak  or  strong  by  thee  ; 


*  Landor’s  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  480.  Hellenics  viii. 


THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


113 


Touch  it  not  but  for  worship  ;  watch  before 
Its  sanctuary ;  nor  leave  it  till  are  closed 
The  temple-doors,  and  the  last  lamp  is  spent.” 

The  combination  of  the  various  elements  of  the  language 
will  be  found  most  abundantly  illustrated  in  the  poems  of 
Milton,  but  from  such  a  theme,  too  large  for  me  to  venture 
on  now,  let  me  pass  to  a  few  other  illustrations  more 
readily  to  be  disposed  of. 

The  poetry  of  our  own  times  has  done  high  service  to 
the  language  by  expanding  its  metrical  discipline,  opening 
a  larger  freedom  and  variety,  and  yet  keeping  aloof  from 
mere  license.  Observe,  for  instance,  in  these  lines,  the 
effect  produced  at  the  close  by  a  change  in  the  structure 
of  the  stanza  and  the  single  long  line  with  which,  at  the 
end,  the  imagination  travels  forth  ; 

“0!  that  our  lives,  which  flee  so  fast, 

In  purity  were  such, 

That  not  an  imago  of  the  past 
Should  fear  that  pencil’s  touch  ! 

Retirement  then  might  hourly  look, 

Upon  a  soothing  scene  ; 

Age  steal  to  his  allotted  nook, 

Contented  and  serene; 

With  heart  as  calm  as  lakos  that  sleep 
In  frosty  moonlight  glistening; 

Or  mountain  rivers,  where  they  creep 

Along  a  channel  smooth  and  deep 

To  their  own  far-off  murmurs  listening.”* 

One  of  the  most  exquisite  studies  of  the  beautiful 
freedom  of  English  verse  is  to  be  found  in  that  poem,  the 
music  of  which  so  fascinated  the  spirit  of  Sir  Walter  Scott 
and  of  Lord  Byron,  as  to  prompt  them  both  to  some  of 


*  Wordsworth. 
10* 


114 


LECTURE  THIRD. 


(heir  own  finest  effusions;  I  refer  to  Coleridge’s  Christa¬ 
bel,  in  which  a  variety  of  line  and  rhyme,  and  even  blank 
verse  is  wrought  into  a  marvellous  unity — nowhere  more 
than  in  that  passage  picturing  Christabel  in  the  forest, 
when  she  hears  the  moaning  of  the  witch. 

“Is  the  night  chilly  and  dark! 

The  night  is  chilly,  but  not  dark. 

The  thin  gray  cloud  is  spread  on  high, 

It  covers  but  not  hides  the  sky. 

The  moon  is  behind,  and  at  the  full, 

And  yet  she  looks  both  small  and  dull. 

The  night  is  chilly,  the  cloud  is  gray, 

’Tis  a  month  before  the  month  of  May, 

And  the  Spring  comes  slowly  up  this  way. 

The  lovely  lady  Christabel, 

Whom  her  father  loves  so  well, 

What  makes  her  in  the  woods  so  late, 

A  furlong  from  the  castle-gate  ? 

She  had  dreams  all  yesternight 
Of  her  own  betrothed  knight: 

And  she  in  the  midnight  wood  will  pray 
For  the  weal  of  her  lover  that’s  far  away. 

She  stole  along,  she  nothing  spoke, 

The  sighs  she  heav’d  were  soft  and  low; 

And  naught  was  green  upon  the  oak 
But  moss  and  rarest  mistletoe ; 

She  kneels  beneath  the  huge  oak-tree, 

And  in  silence  prayeth  she. 

The  lady  sprang  up  suddenly. 

The  lovely  lady,  Christabel! 

It  moan’d  as  near  as  near  can  be, 

But  what  it  is,  she  cannot  tell; 

On  the  other  side,  it  seems  to  be 
Of  the  huge,  broad-breasted  old  oak-tree 

The  night  is  chill,  the  forest  bare  : 

Is  it  the  wind  that  moaneth  bleak. 


TIIE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


U1 


There  is  not  wind  enough  in  the  air 
To  move  away  the  ringlet  curl 
From  the  lovely,  lady’s  cheek; 

There  is  not  wind  enough  to  twirl 
The  one  red  leaf,  the  last  of  its  clan, 

That  dances  as  often  as  dance  it  can, 

Hanging  so  light,  and  hanging  so  high 
On  the  topmost  twig  that  looks  up  to  the  sky. 

Hush,  beating  heart  of  Christabel !” 

There  is  one  more  principle  in  the  study  of  language  in 
poetic  literature  which  I  wish  to  notice,  and  that  is  the 
beauty  of  the  adaptation  in  all  true  poetry  of  the  metrical 
form  to  the  subject  and  feeling  of  the  poem.  “  Every 
true  poet,”  it  has  been  well  said,  “  has  a  song  in  his  mind, 
the  notes  of  which,  little  as  they  precede  his  thoughts — so 
little  as  to  seem  simultaneous  with  them — do  precede,  sug¬ 
gest  and  inspire  many  of  these,  modify  and  beautify 
them.”*  How  this  connection  exists  between  the  poet’s 
thought  and  passion,  and  their  apt  tune  in  language,  is 
more,  perhaps,  than  philosophy  can  discover;  but  there  is 
an  interest  in  observing  the  fact;  and  this  also  is  to  be 
thought  of,  that  the  true  poet  awakens  this  spiritual  song 
in  the  mind  of  his  reader. 

Even  the  same  form  of  verse  is  very  different  in  the 
hands  of  different  poets,  and  has  great  and  characteristic 
variety  of  excellence — the  blank  verse  of  Milton,  of  Cow- 
per,  and  of  Wordsworth,  having  each  a  beautiful  melody 
of  its  own.  It  adds  to  our  knowledge  of  our  language 
and  its  powers,  and  also  greatly  to  the  cultivated  enjoy¬ 
ment  of  poetical  reading,  if  we  take  the  pains  to  obsei  ve 
and  appreciate  the  harmonious  relation  of  the  measure  and 


*  Darley’s  Introduction  to  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  as  quoted  in 
“  Chaucer  Modernized,”  p.  48. 


116 


LECTURE  THIRD. 


the  subject.  I  will  give  an  illustration  of  this  relation, 
by  quoting  two  pieces  by  the  same  poet,  and  then  will  de¬ 
tain  you  but  a  few  minutes  longer.  The  contrast  between 
the  pieces  is  a  refined  one,  because  in  each  there  is  an 
adaptation  to  deep  pathos,  but  exquisitely  varied  to  diffe¬ 
rent  forms  of  pathos,  the  emotion  at  the  aspect  of  death 
in  its  gentleness,  and  of  death  in  its  terrible  tragedy. 

“We  watched  her  breathing  through  the  night, 

Her  breathing  soft  and  low, 

As  in  her  breast  the  wave  of  life 
Kept  heaving  to  and  fro. 

So  silently  we  seemed  to  speak, 

So  slowly  moved  about, 

As  we  had  lent  her  half  our  powers 
To  eke  her  living  out. 

Our  very  hopes  belied  our  fears, 

Our  fears  our  hopes  belied; 

We  thought  her  dying  when  she  slept, 

And  sleeping  when  she  died. 

For  when  the  morn  came  dim  and  sad 
And  chill  with  early  showers. 

Her  quiet  eyelids  closed — she  had 
Another  morn  than  ours.”* 

What  perfect  tranquillity  and  sense  of  resignation  there 
is  in  these  purely  simple  English  words  and  their  gentle 
flow.  Turn  from  them  to  that  other  poem  of  the  same 
author,  “  The  Bridge  of  Sighs,” — a  poet’s  feeling  rebuke 
of  the  vice  and  inhumanity  of  a  great  metropolis,  and  of 
sympathy  with  its  poor,  degraded  victims,  driven  to  sui¬ 
cide  in  the  midnight  waters  of  the  city’s  river.  The 
tranquil,  soul-subduing  music  of  the  former  piece  is 


*  Collected  Edition  of  Hood’s  Poems,  vol.  ii.,  p.  98,  and  vol.  i.,  p.  264. 


THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


117 


changed  to  a  short  and  abrupt  measure,  in  which  the 
passions  of  pity,  bitter  anger,  and  grief  are  stirring  for 
utterance.* 

It  is  thus  in  a  nation’s  poetry  (that  is,  of  course, 
when  it  is  really  poetry  of  a  high  and  worthy  kind)  that 
the  language  will  be  found  in  its  highest  perfection,  in 
its  truest  cultivation;  for  a  poet  can  never  suffer  his  style 
to  fall  short  of  a  well-sustained  purity.  It  is,  therefore, 
in  the  poetry  that  a  language  may  best  be  studied,  even 
for  prose  uses;  that  is,  when  any  one  would  know  to 
what  state  of  excellence  the  language  may  be  carried,  he 
must  look  to  that  chiefly,  but,  of  course,  not  exclusively, 
in  the  poetical  literature. 

We  are  living  at  a  period  when  the  language  has  at¬ 
tained  a  high  degree  of  excellence,  both  in  prose  and 
verse, — when  it  has  developed  largely,  for  all  the  uses 
of  language,  its  power  and  its  beauty.  It  is  one  of  the 
noblest  languages  that  the  earth  has  ever  sounded  with  ; 
it  is  our  endowment,  our  inheritance,  our  trust.  It  asso¬ 
ciates  us  with  the  wise  and  good  of  olden  times,  and  it 
couples  us  with  the  kindred  peoples  of  many  distant 
regions.  It  is  our  duty,  therefore,  to  cultivate,  to  cherish, 
and  to  keep  it  from  corruption.  Especially  is  this  a  duty 
for  us,  who  are  spreading  that  language  over  such  vast 
territory;  and  not  only  that,  but  having  such  growing 
facilities  of  intercommunication,  that  the  language  is  per¬ 
petually  speeding  from  one  portion  of  the  land  to  another 


*  I  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  reprint  at  length  a  poem  sc 
familiar  as  the  “  Bridge  of  Sighs  but  those  who  heard  this  lecture 
will  not  easily  forget  the  beautiful  and  tearful  manner — his  own  gentle 
nature  agitated  by  uncontrollable  sympathy — -in  which  he  recited  its 
beautiful  stanzas.  W.  B.  R. 

H 


118 


LECTURE  TI1IRD. 


with  wondrous  rapidity,  equally  favourable  to  the  diffu 
sion  of  either  purity  or  corruption  of  speech,  but,  cer¬ 
tainly,  calculated  to  break  down  narrow  and  false  provin¬ 
cialisms  of  speech. 

In  the  culture  and  preservation  of  a  language,  there 
are  two  principles,  deep-seated  in  the  philosophy  of  lan¬ 
guage,  which  should  be  borne  in  mind.  One  is,  that 
every  living  language  has  a  power  of  growth,  of  expan¬ 
sion,  of  development;  in  other  words,  its  life — that  which 
makes  it  a  living  language,  having  within  itself  a  power 
to  supply  the  growing  wants  and  improvements  of  a 
living  people  that  uses  it.  If  by  any  system  of  rules 
restraint  is  put  on  this  genuine  and  healthful  freedom, 
on  this  genial  movement,  the  native  vigour  of  the  lan¬ 
guage  is  weakened. 

It  may  he  asked  whether,  by  this  principle  of  the  life 
of  a  language,  it  is  meant  that  the  language  has  no  law. 
Very  far  from  it.  The  other  principle  (and  with  which 
the  first  is  in  perfect  harmony)  is,  that  every  language, 
living  or  dead,  has  its  laws.  Indeed  it  has  been  wisely 
said  that,  “  whatever  be  the  object  of  our  study,  he  it 
language,  or  history,  or  whatsoever  province  of  the  mate¬ 
rial  or  spiritual  world,  we  ought,  in  the  first  instance,  to 
be  strongly  impressed  with  the  conviction  that  every 
thing  in  it  is  subject  to  the  operation  of  certain  princi¬ 
ples,  to  the  dominion  of  certain  laws;  that  there  is 
nothing  lawless  in  it,  nothing  unprincipled,  nothing  insu¬ 
lated  or  capricious,  though,  from  the  fragmentary  nature 
of  our  knowledge,  many  things  may  possibly  appear  so.” 

Now  this  willing,  dutiful  belief  in  the  existence  of  the 
iaws  of  a  language,  however  concealed  they  may  he 
under  apparent  anomalies,  will  not  unfrequently  evolve 


THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


119 


some  beautiful  principle  of  speech,  some  admirable  adap¬ 
tation  of  words  to  the  thoughts  and  feelings,  in  what 
otherwise  is,  too  often,  carelessly  and  ignorantly  dis¬ 
missed  as  an  irregularity.  Permit  me  to  illustrate  briefly 
my  meaning,  by  an  example.  In  expression  of  the  future 
time,  there  is  employed  that  curious  mixture  of  the  two 
verbs  “shall”  and  “will,”  which  is  so  perplexing  to 
foreigners,  and  inexplicable,  though  familiar,  to  many  who 
are  to  the  language  born.  Upon  this  subject  it  has  been 
observed,  there  is  in  human  nature  generally  an  inclina¬ 
tion  to  avoid  speaking  presumptuously  of  the  future, 
in  consequence  of  its  awful,  irrepressible,  and  almost 
instinctive  uncertainty,  and  of  our  own  powerlessness 
over  it,  which,  in  all  cultivated  languages,  has  si¬ 
lently  and  imperceptibly  modified  the  modes  of  expres¬ 
sion  with  regard  to  it.  Further,  there  is  an  instinct  of 
good  breeding  which  leads  a  man  to  veil  the  manifesta¬ 
tion  of  his  own  will,  so  as  to  express  himself  with  be¬ 
coming  modesty.  Hence,  in  the  use  of  those  words, 
“shall”  and  “will,”  (the  former  associated  with  compul¬ 
sion,  the  latter  with  free  volition,)  we  apply,  not  law¬ 
lessly  or  at  random,  but  so  as  to  speak  submissively  in 
the  first  person,  and  courteously  when  we  speak  to  or  of 
another.  This  has  been  a  development,  but  not  without 
a  principle  in  it;  for,  in  our  older  writers,  for  instance, 
in  our  version  of  the  Bible,  “shall”  is  applied  to  all 
three  persons.  We  had  not  then  reached  that  stage  of 
politeness  which  shrinks  from  even  the  appearance  of 
speaking  compulsorily  of  another.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Scotch,  it  is  said,  use  “will”  in  the  first  person  ;  that 
is,  as  a  nation,  they  have  not  acquired  that  particular 


120 


LECTURE  THIRD. 


shade  of  good-breeding  which  shrinks  from  thrusting 
itself  forward. 

I  have  cited  this  theory  of  the  English  future  tenses,  to 
show  how  that  which  is  often  dismissed  as  a  caprice — a 
freak  in  language — may  have  a  law,  a  philosophy,  a  truth 
of  its  own,  if  we  will  but  thoughtfully  and  dutifully  look 
for  it. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  say  that  he  will  gain  the  best 
knowledge  of  our  language  who  shall  seek  it,  not  so  much 
in  mere  systems  of  grammar,  as  in  communion  jyith  the 
great  masters  of  the  language,  in  prose  and  verse.  He 
will  best  appreciate  and  admire  this  English  language  of 
ours — our  mother-speech — who  learns  that  the  genius 
of  it  is  as  far  removed  from  mere  lawlessness,  on  the  one 
hand,  as  from  any  narrow  set  of  rules  which  would  cramp 
it  to  what  has  been  called  “grammar-monger’s  language.” 
In  the  variety  of  our  idioms,  the  free  movement  of  the 
language,  there  is,  as  in  the  race  that  speaks  it,  Saxon 
freedom — freedom  that  is  not  license,  but  law. 


LECTURE  IY. 


©arlg  ©nglisl]  JTiterainrE.  * 

Early  English  prose  and  poetry — Sir  John  Mandeville — Sir  Thomas 
More’s  Life  of  Edward  the  Fifth — Chaucer’s  Tales — Attempted  pa¬ 
raphrases — Chaucer  Modernized — Conflict  of  Norman  and  Saxon 
elements — Gower — Reign  of  Edward  the  Third — Continental  wars 
— Petrarch — Boccacio — -Froissart — The  church — Wyclif — Arts  and 
Architecture — Statutes  in  English — Chaucer  resumed — His  humour 
and  pathos — Sense  of  natural  beauty — The  Temple  of  Faroe — 
Chaucer  and  Mr.  Babbage — The  flower  and  tho  leaf — Canterbury 
Tales — Chaucer’s  high  moral  tone — Wordsworth’s  stanza — Poet’s 
corner  and  Chaucer's  tmnb — The  death  of  a  Language — English 
minstrelsy — Percy’s  Reliques — Sir  Walter  Scott — Wilson — Chris¬ 
tian  hymns  and  chaunts — Conversion  of  King  Edwin — Martial  bal¬ 
lads — Lockhart — Spanish  ballads— Ticknor’s  great  work — Edom  of 
Gordon — Dramatic  power  of  the  ballad — The  Two  Brothers — Con¬ 
trast  of  early  and  late  English  poetry. 

I  proceed  now  to  some  general  considerations  of  the 
chief  eras  into  which  my  subject  may  be,  w'thout 
difficulty,  divided.  The  whole  period  of  our  literature 
may  be  determined  with  more  precision  than  might  at 
first  be  expected,  considering  the  gradual  development 
of  the  language  out  of  its  Anglo-Saxon  original.  I*  is  a 
literature  covering  the  last  five  hundred  years ;  for,  while 


*  Thursday,  Jan.  24,  1850.  Prefixed  to  this  lecture,  in  manu¬ 
script,  arc  some  desultory  hints  as  to  authorities  to  he  consulted  by 
students  of  English  literature.  As  they  were  but  hints,  though  very 
interesting  as  illustrative  of  Mr.  Reed’s  views  on  this  subject,  and 
formed  no  part  of  the  regular  course,  I  may  print  them  in  an  ap¬ 
pendix.  W.  B.  R. 


11 


121 


LECTURE  FOURTII. 


122 

S;r  John  Mandeville,  whose  book  of  travels  has  gained  for 
him  the  reputation  of  the  first  English  prose-writer,  flou¬ 
rished  in  the  first  part  of  the  fourteenth  century,  the  first 
great  English  poet  died  in  the  year  1400.  The  early 
English  prose  possesses,  however,  little,  if  any,  purely 
literary  interest ;  its  value  is  antiquarian,  and  chiefly  a> 
showing  the  formation  of  the  language.  It  is  worthy  of 
remark,  that  the  prose  powers  of  a  language,  and,  conse¬ 
quently,  that  division  of  literature,  are  more  slowly  and 
laboriously  disclosed  than  the  poetic  resources.  Though 
the  history  of  English  prose  begins  about  1850,  with 
what  is  considered  the  first  English  book — Sir  John 
Mandeville’s  Travels — a  century  and  a  half  more  was 
required  to  achieve  any  thing  like  the  excellence  of  later 
English  prose.  It  is  not  until  about  1509,  that  Mr.  Ilal- 
lam  finds  in  Sir  Thomas  More’s  Life  of  Edward  V.  what 
he  pronounces  “  the  first  example  of  good  English  lan¬ 
guage  ;  pure  and  perspicuous,  well  chosen,  without 
vulgarisms  or  pedantry.”*  There  is,  therefore,  a  pe¬ 
riod,  and  that  of  considerable  length,  during  which,  for 
all  that  makes  up  the  essential  and  high  value  of  lite¬ 
rature,  the  prose  of  the  period  has  very  little  claim 
upon  us.  It  is  not  so,  however,  with  the  poetry  of  early 
English  literature ;  for,  as  Mr.  De  Quincy  has  remarked, 
“At  this  hour,  five  hundred  years  since  their  creation, 
the  tales  of  Chaucer,  never  equalled  on  this  earth  for 
tenderness  and  for  life  of  picturesqueness,  are  read  fa¬ 
miliarly  by  many  in  the  charming  language  of  their  natal 
day.”+  And  Coleridge  said  :  “I  take  increasing  delight  in 


*  Hallam’s  Literature  of  Europe,  vol.  i.  p.  232. 
f  Essay  on  Pope,  p.  154. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  \'A 

Chaucer.  His  manly  cheerfulness  is  especially  delicious 
to  me  in  my  old  age.  How  exquisitely  tender  he  is,  and 
yet  how  perfectly  free  from  the  least  touch  of  sickly 
melancholy  or  morbid  drooping  !  The  sympathy  of  the 
poet  with  the  subjects  of  his  poetry,  is  particularly  re¬ 
markable  in  Shakspeare  and  Chaucer ;  but  what  the  first 
effects  by  a  strong  act  of  imagination  and  mental  meta¬ 
morphosis,  the  last  does  without  any  effort,  merely  by  the 
inborn  kindly  joyousness  of  his  nature.”* 

The  present  poet-laureate  of  England  has  said,  “  So 
great  is  my  admiration  of  Chaucer’s  genius,  and  so  pro¬ 
found  my  reverence  for  him  as  an  instrument  in  the 
hands  of  Providence  for  spreading  the  light  of  literature 
through  his  native  land,  that  I  am  glad  of  the  effort  for 
making  many  acquainted  with  his  poetry  who  would 
otherwise  be  ignorant  of  every  thing  about  him  but  his 
name”f  Another  eminent  living  man  of  letters  has  ex¬ 
pressed  his  admiration  of  the  old  poet,  by  saying  that  he 
rather  objected  to  any  attempts  to  remove  the  difficulties 
of  the  antique  text,  inasmuch  as  he  wished  “  to  keep 
Chaucer  for  himself  and  a  few  friends.” 

Unfortunately,  the  obsolete  dialect  in  which  Chaucer 
wrote  is  such  an  obstacle,  that  it  is  far  easier  to  keep  him 
for  oneself  than  to  recover  for  him  now  the  hearing  of 
his  fellow-men,  which  he  ouce  commanded,  and  which 
can  never  cease  to  be  the  due  of  his  genius.  I  know  of 
nothing  in  literary  history  like  the  fate  of  Chaucer  in  this 

*  Table  Talk,  vol.  ii.  p.  297. 

t  This  is  an  extract  from  a  letter  from  Wordsworth  to  Mr.  Reed, 
dated  January  13,  1841,  sending  a  copy  of  a  little  volume  published 
in  London,  called  “  The  Poems  of  Geoffrey  Chaucer  Modernized  ” 
The  work  is  by  different  hands.  W.  B.  R. 


124 


LECTURE  P0URTII. 


respect.  His  poems  are  not  in  a  dead  language ;  they 
cannot  be  said  to  be  in  a  living  language.  Tbey  are  not 
in  a  foreign  tongue,  and  yet  tbey  are  hardly  in  our  own. 
There  is  much  that  is  the  English  still  in  use,  and  tljere 
is  much  that  is  very  different.  A  reader  not  accustomed 
to  English  so  antiquated,  opens  a  volume  of  Chaucer,  and 
he  meets  words  that  are  familiar  and  words  that  are  un¬ 
couth  to  him.  In  this,  there  is  something  repulsive  to 
the  eye  and  the  ear,  especially  in  finding  words  strangely 
syllabled  and  accented.  He  is  not  prepared  to  apply  him¬ 
self  to  it  as  he  might  to  a  poem  in  a  foreign  or  dead  lan¬ 
guage,  to  be  toilsomely  translated;  and  yet  he  cannot  ap¬ 
proach  it  as  the  literature  of  his  own  living  speech. 
The  use  of  glossaries  and  explanatory  vocabularies  can¬ 
not  be  dispensed  with ;  but,  to  most  readers,  this  is  a 
wearisome  process,  for  there  is  something  thwarting  and 
vexatious  in  finding  ourselves  at  fault  in  dealing  with  our 
own  mother-tongue.  It  seems  like  encountering  the  curse 
of  Babel  in  our  own  homes,  on  our  own  hearths ;  and 
that  is  a  misery.  In  forming  acquaintance  with  ancient 
or  foreign  literature,  the  student  knows  that  a  well-de¬ 
fined  exertion  is  needed,  and  this  he  makes  in  working 
his  way  through  ancient  or  foreign  words  and  idioms; 
and  thus  he  comes  to  know  the  literature  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  of  France,  or  Italy,  or  Germany.  But  the  anti¬ 
quated  dialect  of  his  own  language  is  a  mingled  mass 
of  sunshine  and  shadow,  with  sharp  and  sudden  changes 
from  one  to  the  other,  so  that  the  mind  is  distracted  in 
the  uncertainty  how  long  the  clearness  will  last,  and  how 
soon  the  obscurity  will  come  again,  going  along,  like 
Christabel,  “  now  in  glimmet  and  now  in  gloom.”  This 
proves  a  greater  obstacle  than  the  total  separation  of  lan- 


EARLY  ENGLISH  LITERATURE. 


125 


guage  which  enforces  the  task  of  translation,  and  it  has 
been  remarked  with  truth  that,  “  if  Chaucer’s  poems  had 
been  written  in  Greek  or  Hebrew,  they  would  have  been 
a  thousand  times  better  known.  They  would  have  been 
translated.”* 

A  process  akin  to  translation  has  been  attempted,  the 
most  noted  of  the  paraphrases  of  Chaucer’s  poems  being 
those  by  Dryden  and  Pope.  Those  versions  are,  however, 
of  little  avail  for  what  should  have  been  their  chief  pur¬ 
pose  ;  for,  while  they  serve  to  give  the  reader  a  notion 
of  Dryden  and  Pope,  the  genius  of  Chaucer,  with  all 
its  natural  simplicity  and  power,  is  lost  by  being  trans¬ 
muted  into  the  elaborate  polish  of  the  verse  of  the  times 
of  Charles  the  Second  and  of  Queen  Anne. 

The  only  successful  attempt  to  make  the  approach  to 
the  poetry  of  Chaucer  more  easy,  by  modifying  his  diction 
and  metre,  has  been  made  within  the  last  few  years,  in 
a  small  work  entitled  “ Chaucer  Modernized.”  It  may 
be  recommended  as  a  safe  introduction  to  a  knowledge  of 
Chaucer’s  poetry,  for  the  versions  are  from  the  pens  of 
several  distinguished  living  poets,  combining  in  this  service 
of  filial  reverence  to  the  memory  of  the  Father  of  English 
Poetry ;  and  the  versions  are  composed  strictly  on  this 
principle,  that  the  paraphrase  is  limited  to  such  changes 
as  are  absolutely  necessary  to  render  the  meaning  and 
metre  of  the  original  intelligible;  and  thus  the  reader  in 
the  nineteenth  century  is  placed  in  the  same  relative  posi¬ 
tion  as  the  reader  of  the  fourteenth,  communing  with  the 
imagination  of  the  Poet,  through  verse  which  is  readily 
and  naturally  familiar. 


*  Introduction  to  “Chaucer  Modernized,”  p.  5. 
11* 


126 


LECTURE  FOURTH. 


Now,  xmsidering  these  difficulties  of  language,  it  is  re¬ 
markable  that  the  few  readers  of  Chaucer’s  poetry  should 
have  had  authority,  from  generation  to  generation,  to  sus¬ 
tain  his  traditionary  fame;  for  if  he  is  not  known  and  felt 
to  be  the  earliest  of  the  great  English  poets,  he  is  at  least 
always  named  as  such. 

“That  noble  Chaucer,  in  those  former  times, 

Who  first  enriched  our  English  with  his  rhymes, 

And  was  the  first  of  ours  that  ever  broke 
Into  the  Muse’s  treasures,  and  first  spoke 
In  mighty  numbers;  delving  in  the  mine 
Of  perfect  knowledge,  which  he  could  refine 
And  coin  for  current,  and  as  much  as  then 
The  English  language  could  express  for  men, 

He  made  it  do.”* 

Usually,  in  the  history  of  a  nation’s  literature,  it  may  be 
observed  that  the  language  and  the  literature  move  forward 
together — the  rude  dialect  being  adequate  to  express  the 
motives  of  the  rude  mind;  so  that  what  is  handed  down 
in  an  unformed  language  is  commonly  nothing  more  than 
the  imperfect  products  of  the  early  intellect  or  fancy. 
But  the  peculiarity  of  Chaucer’s  position  in  literary 
history  is  just  this,  that  in  the  era  of  an  unshaped  lan¬ 
guage,  we  have  an  author  of  the  very  highest  rank  of 
poetic  genius. 

That  Chaucer  took  the  language  of  his  own  time,  and 
in  its  best  estate,  (for  language  always  makes  gift  of  its 
best  wealth  to  a  great  poet,)  need  not  be  doubted ;  but  it  is 
difficult  to  conceive  the  condition  of  the  language  dur¬ 
ing  his  time,  in  the  fifty  years’  reign  ot  Edward  the 
Third.  For  the  scholastic  uses  of  the  learned,  and  for 


*  Drayton’s  Elegy,  “  To  my  dearly-loved  friend,  Henry  Reynolds, 
Esq.,  “  Of  Poets  and  Poesy.”  Anderson’s  Poets,  vol.  iii.  p.  348. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  LITERATURE. 


127 


ecclesiastical  purposes,  the  Latin  was  still  a  living  lan¬ 
guage.  The  French  was  the  speech  of  the  court,  and  in 
private  correspondence  had  superseded  the  Latin.  But 
with  the  great  body  of  the  people  there  was  the  great  body 
of  Anglo-Saxon  words  and  forms  of  speech,  with  a  living 
power  in  them  which  no  foreign  or  ancient  dialects  could 
quench ;  and  to  that,  the  English  language,  imperfect, 
unformed,  and  changing  as  it  was,  this  great  poet  gave  his 
heart ;  showing,  like  his  most  illustrious  successors,  that 
the  great  poet  is  ever  a  true  patriot  also.  “Let,  then,” 
said  Chaucer,  “clerkes  enditen  in  Latin,  for  they  have  the 
propertie  of  science,  and  the  knowing  of  that  facultie;  and 
lette  Frenchmen  in  their  French  also  enditen  their  queint 
termes,  for  it  is  kindly  to  their  mouthes ;  and  let  us  show 
our  fantasies  in  such  wordes  as  we  learnden  of  our  Dame’s 
tongue.”  And  when  he  wrote  for  the  teaching  of  his 
little  son,  he  used  English,  because,  said  he,  “  curious 
enditying  and  harde  sentences  are  full  bevy  at  once  for 
such  a  childe  to  lerne,”  and  bids  the  boy  think  of  it  as  the 
King’s  English.* 

It  needed  the  large  soul  of  a  great  poet  to  make  choice 
of  the  People’s  speech  rather  than  the  dialects  of  the 
learned  or  the  nobles.  Chaucer’s  contemporary  and 
senior  brother-poet,  honoured  by  him  as  the  “moral 
Gower,”  ventured  upon  no  such  confidence  in  the  language 
of  the  land.  The  legacy  of  his  song  was  committed  to 
Latin  and  to  French  words ;  and  yet  what  might  he  not 
have  achieved,  had  he  oftener  trusted  the  rude  mother- 
tongue,  as  in  that  passage  in  which  he  pictures  Medea 


*  Prologue  to  Testament  of  Love.  Ed.  1542,  cited  in  Picker'^ng’* 
Edition  of  Chaucer,  vol.  i.  p.  202. 


128 


LECTURE  FOURTH 


going  forth  at  midnight  to  gather  herbs  for  the  incantations 
of  her  witchcraft?  I  give  you  without  a  change,  the  words 
and  the  metre,  five  hundred  years  old,  of  the  poet  Gower: 

“  Thus  it  befell  upon  a  night, 

Whann  there  was  naught  hut  sterro  light, 

She  was  vanished  right  as  hir  list, 

That  no  wight  but  hirselfe  wist: 

And  that  was  at  midnight-tide  ; 

The  world  was  still  on  every  side. 

With  open  head,  and  foote  all  bare 
His  heare  to  spread ;  she  gan  to  fare : 

Upon  the  clothes  gyrte  she  was, 

And  speecheles,  upon  the  gras 
She  glode  forth,  as  an  adder  doth.” 

If  Chaucer  was  unfortunate  in  the  period  of  his  country’s 
language,  he  was  happy  in  the  era  of  his  country’s  history. 
The  Saxon  and  the  Norman,  the  conqueror  and  con¬ 
quered,  had  grown  together  into  one  people.  It  was  Chau¬ 
cer’s  fortune  to  be  an  eye-witness  of  that  vast  ambition 
which  fired  his  sovereign  in  grasping  at  the  diadem  of 
France,  to  make  the  two  great  monarchies  of  Europe  one; 
and  how  could  the  fire  in  a  great  poet’s  heart  sleep,  when 
he  beheld  his  king  and  his  prince,  those  proud  Plantaga- 
nets,  the  third  Edward  and  his  heroic  son,  going  forth 
like  royal  knights-errant  in  quest  of  majestic  adventures. 
The  reign  was  one  of  high  monarchal  pride,  displayed, 
however,  so  as  to  animate  a  high  national  pride  by  lifting 
up  the  sense  of  the  nation’s  dignity,  and  power,  and  mag¬ 
nificence.  Kings  were  suppliant  to  England’s  princes  for 
help — kings  were  captive  in  England’s  capital;  and  that 
ambitious  noble,  “old  John  of  Gaunt,”  Chaucer’s  patron 
and  Kinsman,  not  content  with  his  English  dukedom,  was 
proclaimed  King  of  Castile.  It  was  a  period  of  high- 
wrougm  martial  enthusiasm,  and  the  early  modes  of  war- 


EARLY  ENGLISH  LITERATURE. 


129 


fare  passed  not  away  without  fierce  employment,  as  if  the 
arrow  could  not  cease  to  be  a  weapon  of  death  without 
drinking  its  last  deep  draught  of  blood,  when  the  air  was 
darkened  over  the  plains  of  Crecy  and  Poictiers,  by  the 
shafts  from  the  hosts  of  English  archers.  With  all  the 
animating  movements  of  the  reign,  Chaucer  was  in  close 
and  active  sympathy ;  he  was  a  courtier  and  a  soldier,  as 
well  as  a  student.  No  poet  has  ever  held  such  large  and 
free  communion  with  the  world  and  his  fellow-men.  He 
stood  in  the  presence  of  kings  and  nobles;  and  became 
versed  in  the  lore  of  chivalry,  its  principles  and  its 
fashions:  he  went  forth  from  the  pomp  of  the  court  to  do 
a  soldier’s  service,  and  in  the  season  of  peace  to  muse  iD 
the  fields,  to  look  with  loving  eyes  upon  the  flowers,  to 
sympathize  with  the  simple  hearts  of  children  and  of  pea¬ 
sants,  to  honour  womanhood  alike  in  humble  or  in  high 
estate,  and  to  commune  with  the  faithful  and  the  zealous 
of  the  priesthood.  He  travelled  into  foreign  lauds,  an 
envoy  or  an  exile,  (so  varied  was  his  career,)  happy,  if 
the  conjecture  be  not  unfounded,  in  listening  to  words 
falling  from  the  living  lips  of  Italy’s  great  poet,  then  the 
aged  Petrarch,  possibly  meeting  Boccacio  and  Froissart. 
When,  near  three  hundred  years  later,  the  youthful  Milton 
visited  the  shores  of  Italy,  amid  all  the  classical  associa¬ 
tions  that  were  thronjrino;  into  his  heart,  he  found  room 
for  the  proud  memory  that  the  father  of  English  poetry 
had  stood  on  the  same  soil.* 


*  In  the  Epistle  to  Manso,  the  friend  of  Tasso,  a  production  which 
Mr.  Hillard,  in  his  charming  hook  on  Italy,  calls  “the  most  Virgilian 
of  all  compositions  not  written  by  Virgil,”  Milton  says: 

Ergo  ego  te,  Clius  et  magni  nomine  Phcebi, 

Manse  pater,  jubeo  lougum  salvere  per  aevuin. 


130 


LECTURE  FOURTH. 


The  times  in  which  Chaucer  lived  were  momentous 
also  as  a  period  in  which  were  first  seen  the  forecast 
shadows  of  mighty  changes  in  the  Christian  church;  and 
we  can  well  believe  that  his  heart  must  have  leaped  up 
when  he  beheld  the  bold  British  hand  of  John  Wyclif, 
a  hundred  years  and  more  before  the  days  of  Luther, 
strike  the  first  blow  at  ecclesiastical  tyranny — the  same 
hand  which  was  an  instrument  of  Providence  in  taking  the 
seal  from  off  the  Bible,  and  spreading  it  in  living  English 
words  throughout  the  land. 

The  last  half  of  the  fourteenth  century,  which  was  the  pe¬ 
riod  of  Chaucer’s  manhood,  (for  he  died,  let  it  be  remem¬ 
bered,  an  aged  man,  in  the  year  1400,)  was  an  era  in  which 
the  English  mind  was  touched  by  many  of  its  finest  and 
most  quickening  influences.  The  impulse  it  received  was 
manifest  in  various  departments  of  human  thought.  The 
arts  were  cultivated,  civic  architecture  especially,  and  chiefly 
that  sacred  form  of  it  which  has  been  the  wonder  of  after 
ages.  Painting  was  cultivated,  and  the  more  glorious 
sister  art  of  poetry  was  taught  by  two  poets  more  eminent 
than  England  had  yet  produced,  John  Gower  and  Geoffry 
Chaucer.  It  was  fitting  that  in  such  an  age  the  Parlia 
ment  of  England  should  decree  that  the  statutes  of  the 


Missus  Hyperboreo  juvenis  peregrinus  ab  axo. 
Nec  tu  longinquam  bonus  aspernabere  musam, 
Quae  nuper  gelida  vix  enutrita  sub  Areto, 
Imprudens  Italas  ausa  est  volitare  per  urbes. 
Nos  etiam  in  nostro  modulantes  flumine  cygnos 
Credimus  obscuras  noctis  sensisse  per  umbras. 
Qua  Thamesis  late  puris  argenteus  urnis 
Oceani  glaucos  perfundit  gurgite  crines 
Quin  et  in  has  quondam  pervenit  Tityrus  oras.” 
Milford's  Milton,  vol.  3,  p.  317.  W.  B.  R. 


THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


131 


realm  were  no  longer  to  be  enrolled  in  a  foreign  dialect, 
but  that  the  voice  of  British  legislation  should  speak  in 
the  nation’s  own  language. 

The  student  of  literature,  who  will  take  the  pains  to 
master  the  difficulties  of  Chaucer’s  antiquated  poems — 
and  they  will  quickly  diminish  before  him — will  find  an 
abundant  reward.  His  poems  are  as  varied  as  they  are 
voluminous,  rich  in  original  materials  and  in  that  which, 
drawn  from  foreign  sources — the  Latin,  French,  and 
Italian  literature — bears  in  the  transmutation  the  glory 
of  a  great  poet’s  invention.  What  most  distinguishes 
the  genius  of  Chaucer  is  the  comprehensiveness  and 
variety  of  his  powers.  You  look  at  him  in  his  gay  mood, 
and  it  is  so  genial  that  that  seems  to  be  his  very  nature, 
an  overflowing  comic  power,  or,  rather,  that  power  touched 
with  thoughtfulness  and  tenderness — “humour”  in  its 
finest  estate.  And  then  you  turn  to  another  phase  of 
his  genius,  and  with  something  of  wonder,  and  more  of 
delight,  you  find  it  shining  with  a  light  as  true  and  natu¬ 
ral  and  beautiful  into  the  deeper  places  of  the  human 
soul — its  woes,  its  anguish,  and  its  strength  of  suffering 
and  of  heroism.  In  this,  the  harmonious  union  of  true 
tragic  and  comic  powers,  Chaucer  and  Shakspeare  stand 
alone  in  our  literature :  it  places  these  two  above  all  the 
other  great  poets  of  our  language,  for  such  combination 
is  the  highest. endowment  of  poetic  genius. 

The  genius  of  Chaucer  is  manifest  also  in  that  other 
characteristic  of  the  poetic  spirit,  wise  and  genial  com¬ 
munion  with  the  spiritual  influences  of  the  material  world, 
“  Earth,  air,  ocean,  and  the  starry  sky.”  All  nature  is 
with  him  alive  with  a  fresh  and  active  life-blood.  His 
green  leaves,  it  has  been  well  said,  are  the  greenest  that 


132 


LECTURE  FOURTH. 


were  ever  seen.  His  grass  is  the  gladdest  green ;  the 
cool  and  fragrant  breezes  he  sings  of  seem  to  fan  the 
reader’s  cheek ;  his  birds  pour  forth  notes  the  most  thrill- 
1DS;  the  most  soothing,  that  ever  touched  mortal  ear — 

“  There  was  many  and  many  a  lovely  note, 

Some  singing  loud,  as  if  they  had  complained  ; 

Some  with  their  notes  another  manner  feigned ; 

And  some  did  sing  all  out  with  the  full  throat.” 

The  earth  and  sky — his  earth  and  sky — are  steeped  in 
brightest  sunshine,  and  “  all  things  else  about  him  drawn 
from  May-time  and  the  cheerful  dawn.”* 

*  Introduction  to  Chaucer  Modernized,  p.  xcvi.,  and  Words¬ 
worth’s  Version  of  the  Cuckoo  and  the  Nightingale,  p.  41.  I  am 
tempted  in  this  connection  to  make  an  extract  from  a  most  grace¬ 
ful  tribute  to  my  brother’s  memory  in  a  private  letter  from  Lady 
Richardson,  the  wife  of  Sir  John  Richardson  of  Arctic  celebrity, 
and  a  lady  of  high  intelligence  and  accomplishments.  It  is  descrip¬ 
tive  of  the  first  impression  of  a  bright  May  morning,  with  its  gentle 
companionship  of  singing  birds  and  flowers,  among  the  English  lakes 
and  amid  Wordsworth’s  haunts:  “It  must  have  been,”  writes  Lady 
Richardson,  “  about  the  middle  of  May  that  we  heard  of  Mr.  Reed’s 
arrival  at  Rydal  Mount;  on  the  next  day  he  called.  The  day  was 
so  beautiful,  that,  fearing  he  might  not  see  the  valley  of  the  Easedale 
again  on  so  fine  a  day,  I  took  him  to  Wordsworth’s  Wall  and  round 
the  Terrace  Walk  for  a  first  view.  We  had  little  time  for  more  than 
to  walk  quickly  round,  I  pointing  out  where  “  tho  Prelude”  was  com¬ 
posed,  and  where  so  many  summer  hours  were  passed.  He  did  not 
say  much;  but  the  expression  of  his  face  showed  me  the  deep  delight 
he  felt,  both  in  the  present  beauty  and  in  the  associations  the  place 
recalled.  As  we  returned,  the  “  Wandering  Voice”  was  peculiarly 
blythe  and  near  to  us  on  that  May  morning,  and  I  remember  he  told 
me  he  had  hcaud  the  cuckoo  for  the  first  time  at  Rydal  Mount.  He 
remarked  on  the  beauty  of  the  holly,  which  he  did  not  seem  to  know 
before.  He  spoke  of  Southey’s  lines  on  the  holly-tree,  the  loss  of  its 
thorns,  and  its  smooth  leaves  as  it  grows  high,  compared  to  what  old 
age  should  be.  We  paused  to  talk  and  sit  and  quote  some  of  our  favourite 


THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


1.33 


A  favourite  form  of  imaginative  composition  of  those 
times  was  the  romantic  allegory,  and  Chaucer,  taking  up 
the  fashion,  has  perpetuated  it,  especially  in  two  poems, 
which  the  life-giving  power  of  geuius  yet  preserves.  One 
of  these,  the  “  House  of  Fame,”  is  known  to  modern  readers 
chiefly  through  Pope’s  paraphrase,  bearing  the  statelier 
title — a  characteristic  alteration — of  the  “  Temple  of  Fame.” 
This  poem  is  not  one  on  which  I  need  stop  for  criticism, 
and  I  am  about  to  mention  it  for  quite  a  different  purpose. 
It  contains  a  passage  which  has  struck  me  as  in  curious 
anticipation  of  a  scientific  hypothesis  suggested  in  our 
own  days;  poetic  imagination  foreshadowing  the  results 
of  scientific  reasoning.  In  the  ninth  Bridgewater  Treatise, 
from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Babbage,  he  propounded  a  theory 
respecting  the  permanent  impressions  of  our  words — spoken 
words — a  theory  startling  enough  almost  to  close  a  man’s 
lips  in  perpetual  silence :  “  That  the  pulsations  of  the 
air,  once  set  in  motion  by  the  human  voice,  cease  not  to 
exist  with  the  sounds  to  which  they  give  rise ;  that  the 
waves  of  the  air  thus  raised  perambulate  the  earth  and 

line?;  anti  all  that  he  said  impressed  me  with  the  feeling  of  his  being 
of  that  genial,  elevated,  and  kindly  stamp  which  Wordsworth  most  de¬ 
lighted  in.  On  coming  to  a  walk  at  the  foot  of  some  rocks  which  my 
husband  had  engineered  during  his  last  visit,  Mr.  Reed  said,  ‘  How 
pleasant  it  is,  that  one  whose  heroic  character  and  sufferings  interested 
me  so  much,  as  a  boy,  in  America,  can  now  be  associated  with  this 
lovely  scene  !’  Wo  parted  with  a  promise  that  they  would  come  and 
sec  me  in  the  South.  This  they  were  unfortunately  prevented  doing, 
and  we  never  met  again.” — MS.  Letter.  I  hope  I  violate  no  pro¬ 
priety  in  using  a  letter  which  never  was  intended  for  the  public  eye; 
but  the  temptation  to  give  this  glimpse  of  the  last  bright  hours,  the 
simple,  natural  tastes  and  pure  imaginings,  associated,  like  his  great 
poetic  models,  with  all  that  was  beautiful  in  nature,  of  one  whom  it 
Is  now  no  flattery  to  praise,  has  been  irresistible.  W.  B.  R. 

I  12 


134 


LECTURE  FOURTH. 


ocean’s  surface;  and  soon  every  atom  of  its  atmosphere 
takes  up  the  altered  movement,  due  to  the  infinitesimal 
portion  of  the  primitive  motion  which  has  been  conveyed 
to  it  through  countless  channels,  and  which  must  continue 
to  influence  its  paths  throughout  its  future  existence. 
Every  atom,”  adds  the  philosopher,  “  impressed  with  good 
and  with  ill,  retains  at  once  the  motions  which  ‘philoso¬ 
phers  and  sages  have  imparted  to  it,  mixed  and  combined, 
in  ten  thousand  ways,  with  all  that  is  worthless  and  base. 

.  .  .  The  atmosphere  we  breathe  is  the  ever-living  wit¬ 
ness  of  the  sentiments  we  have  uttered,  ....  and  (in 
another  state  of  being)  the  offender  may  hear  still  vibrat¬ 
ing  in  his  ear  the  very  words,  uttered  perhaps  thousands 
of  centuries  before,  which  at  once  caused  and  registered 
his  own  condemnation.” 

Now  I  have  no  thought  of  intimating,  in  the  most 
remote  degree,  that  in  this  remarkable  train  of  thought 
Mr.  Babbage  was  under  obligations  to  Chaucer.  The 
passage  has  an  air  of  absolute  originality;  and,  besides,  the 
writer  of  it  is  too  strong-minded  and  manly  to  allow  such 
obligations,  if  they  existed,  to  pass  unacknowledged.  I 
have  no  sympathy  with  the  spirit  which  delights  in  detect¬ 
ing  plagiarisms  in  the  casual  and  innocent  coincidences 
which  every  student  knows  are  frequently  occurring.  That 
there  is  such  a  coincidence  worthy  of  notice,  will  be  seen 
in  these  lines  in  The  House  of  Fame  : 

“  Sound  is  nought  but  air  that’s  broken, 

And  every  speeehe  that  is  spoken, 

Whe’er  loud  or  low,  foul  or  fair, 

In  his  substance  is  but  air : 

For  as  flame  is  but  lighted  smoke, 

Right  so  is  sound  but  air  that’s  broke, 

Eke  where  that  men  harpstrings  smite 


TIIE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 


US 


Whether  that  be  much  or  lite, 

Lo  !  with  the  stroke,  the  air  it  breaketh  ; 
Thus  wot’st  thou  well  what  thing  is  speech  l 
Now,  henceforth,  I  will  thee  teach 
How  ever  each  speeche,  voice  or  sown, 
Through  his  multiplicion, 

Though  it  were  piped  of  a  mouse, 

Must  needs  come  to  Fame’s  House. 

I  prove  it  thus  ;  taketh  heed  now 
By  experience,  for  if  that  thou 
Throw  in  a  water  now  a  stone, 

Well  wot’st  thou  it  will  make  anon 
A  little  roundel  as  a  circle, 

Par  venture  as  broad  as  a  covcrcle. 

And  right  anon  thou  shalt  see  well 
That  circle  cause  another  wheel, 

And  that  the  third,  and  so  forth,  brother, 
Every  circle  causing  other, 

Much  broader  than  himselfen  was  : 

Right  so  of  air,  my  leve  brother, 

Ever  each  air  another  stirreth, 

More  and  more  and  speech  up  beareth, 

Till  it  bo  at  the  ‘  House  of  Fame.’  ”* 


*  That  this  wns  mere  coincidence,  Mr.  Reed  ascertained,  in  con¬ 
versation  with  Mr.  Babbage,  on  his  visit  to  England,  in  1854.  “  I 

mentioned  to  him,”  Mr.  Reed  writes  to  a  friend  in  America,  “that  I 
had  once  in  a  public  lecture  quoted  from  his  Bridgewater  Treatise  the 
startling  passage  about  the  perpetuity  of  sound,  and  that  some  of  my 
audience  used  to  say  that  it  almost  made  them  afraid  for  some  days 
to  speak,  from  the  dread  that  the  sounds  were  to  last,  and  mayhap 
come  back  to  them  in  the  hereafter  :  on  telling  him  I  had  cited  the  pas¬ 
sage  in  a  literary  connection,  as  a  curious  parallelism  with  Chaucer,  ho 
expressed  much  surprise,  and  begged  mo  to  refer  to  the  passage.  It 
was  all  new  to  him.” — MS.  Letter. 

A  curious  chapter  on  these  perfectly  innocent  coincidences  might 
be  written — for  literary  history  is  full  of  them.  In  Lockhart's  Scott, 
(vol.  x.  p.  208,)  it  is  said,  “  Dr.  Watson,  having  consulted  on  all  things 
with  Mr.  Clarkson  and  his  father,  resigned  the  panent  to  them,  and 


LECTURE  FOURTH. 


One  of  the  brightest  dreams  that  poet  ever  fashioned 
out  of  shadowy  imaginings,  is  the  allegory,  “  The  Flovjer 
and  the  Leaf”  with  its  beautiful  moral,  and  an  exuberance 
of  fancy  seldom  met  with  out  of  the  region  of  early 
poetry.  A  gentlewoman,  seated  in  an  arbour,  beholds  a 
great  company  of  ladies  and  knights  in  a  dance  on  the 
grass,  which  being  ended,  they  all  kneel  down  and  do 
honour  to  the  daisy — some  to  the  flower,  and  some  to  the 
leaf ;  and  the  meaning  thereof  is  this  :  “  They  which 
honour  the  flower,  a  thing  fading  with  every  blast,  are 
such  as  look  after  beauty  and  worldly  pleasure;  but  they 
that  honour  the  leaf,  which  abideth  with  the  root,  not¬ 
withstanding  the  frosts  and  winter  storms,  are  they  which 
follow  virtue  and  during  qualities,  without  regard  of 
worldly  respects.” 

The  fame  of  Chaucer  rests,  however,  chiefly  on  the 


returned  to  London.  None  of  them  could  have  any  hope  hut  that  of 
soothing  irritation.  Recovery  was  no  longer,  to  be  thought  of,  but 
there  might  be  Euthanasia.”  A  hundred  years  before  Arbutbnot  wrote 
to  Pope,  “a  recovery  in  my  case  and  at  my  age  is  impossible:  the 
kindest  wish  of  my  friends  is  Euthanasia.”  Haydon,  in  his  strange 
journal,  writing  in  1 826,  says,  “  There  is  hardly  any  thing  new.  I 
never  literally  stole  hut  one  figure  in  my  life  (Aaron)  from  Raphael. 
Yet  to-day  I  found  my  Olympias,  which  I  had  dashed  in  in  a  heat, 
exactly  a  repetition  of  an  Antigone,  and  the  first  thing  I  saw  in  the 
Louvre  was  Poussin’s  Judgment  of  Solomon,  with  Solomon  in  nearly 
the  same  position  as  in  my  picture.  Yet  I  solemnly  declare  I  never 
saw  even  the  print  when  I  conceived  my  Solomon,  which  was  done 
one  night,  before  I  began  to  paint,  at  nineteen,  when  I  lodged  in 
Carey  Street,  and  was  ill  in  my  eyes.  I  lay  back  in  my  chair,  and 
indulged  myself  in  composing  my  Solomon.  I  will  venture  to  say,  no 
painter  but  Wilkie  will  believe  this,  though  it  is  as  true  as  that  two 
and  two  make  four.”  Haydon’s  Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  488  ;  see  alsc  Witr 
mott’s  Pleasures  of  Literature,  p.  259.  W.  B.  R. 


EARLY  E  N  G  LI  S  II  LITERATURE. 


137 


great  work  of  his  matured  powers,  showing  how  genius 
carries  forward  the  freshness  of  feeling  for  three-scoie 
years.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  the  “ Canterbury  Tales”  an 
unfinished  poem,  like  the  Faery  Queen,  and,  like  it,  won¬ 
derful  as  a  fragment,  for  the  vast  extent  of  what  is 
achieved,  as  well  as  of  what  was  planned.  The  design 
of  this  poem  is  one  of  the  happiest  thoughts  that  ever 
housed  itself  in  a  poet’s  heart.  A  chance-gathered  com¬ 
pany  of  pilgrims  on  their  way  to  the  shrine  of  St.  Thomas 
a  Becket  at  Canterbury,  meet  in  a  London  inn,  and  the 
host  proposes  that  they  beguile  the  ride  by  each  telling 
a  tale  to  his  fellow-pilgrims.  Thus  comes,  with  its  large 
variety,  the  collection  of  the  Canterbury  Tales.  The 
prologue,  containing  the  description  of  the  pilgrims,  is 
better  known,  perhaps,  than  the  rest  of  the  work,  partly, 
perhaps,  from  Stothard’s  well-known  picture  of  the  pil¬ 
grimage.  From  this  prefatory  poem  of  a  few  hundred 
lines,  a  truer  and  livelier  conception  of  the  state  of  so¬ 
ciety  in  England,  five  hundred  years  ago,  can  be  got  than 
from  all  other  sources  of  information.  It  makes  us  more 
at  home  there  in  the  distant  years ;  carries  us  more  into 
the  spirit  of  the  age ;  lets  us  see  the  men  and  the  women 
of  those  times,  be  among  them  and  know  their  ways 
of  life,  manners,  and  dress,  far  better  than  any  unima¬ 
ginative  record  can  do.  There  are  a  hundred  things — 
prime  elements,  too,  in  a  nation’s  heart — that  history 
never  troubles  itself  with.  The  torch  of  a  poet’s  ima¬ 
gination  is  held  on  high,  and  forthwith  a  light  is  thrown 
on  the  whole  region  round,  and  we  see  a  multitude  of 
objects  which  else  would  be  lost  in  the  distance  or  the 
darkness. 

Among  other  matters,  the  poems  of  Chaucer  are  full 
12* 


138 


LECTURE  FOURTH. 


of  testimony,  unstudied  testimony,  on  a  momentous  sub¬ 
ject — the  condition  of  the  Church  in  those  ages,  when  its 
abuses,  looseness,  and  luxury  roused  the  indignation  of  the 
first  of  the  great  Reformers.  What  an  image  of  monastic 
voluptuousness  is  there  in  one  of  Chaucer’s  pictures,  a  full- 
length  portrait  in  one  line,  when  he  describes  the  monk, 

“  Fat  as  a  whale,  and  walkedlike  a  swan  !” 

Nor  was  the  poet’s  bold  satire  of  the  corruptions  which 
had  crept  into  the  Church  the  sarcasm  of  a  licentious, 
irreverent  temper,  for  he  has  bequeathed  to  all  after¬ 
times  a  portrait  of  the  pure  clerical  character,  which,  as 
an  imaginative  picture  of  holy  life,  of  Christian  piety, 
zeal,  meekness,  and  self-sacrifice,  still  stands  unequalled 
in  English  literature  : 

“A  poor  parson  of  a  town : 

sj?  m 

Wide  was  his  parish — houses  far  asunder — 

But  he  neglected  nought  for  rain  or  thunder, 

In  sickness  and  in  grief  to  visit  all. 

The  farthest  in  his  parish,  great  and  small, 

Always  on  foot,  and  in  his  hand  a  stave. 

This  noble  example  to  his  flock  he  gave  : 

That  first  he  wrought,  and  afterward  he  taught; 

Out  of  the  gospel  he  that  lesson  caught, 

And  this  new  figure  added  he  thereto, 

That  if  gold  rust,  then  what  should  iron  do?”* 

Tbe  prologue  is  curious,  too,  as  representing  the  free 
dom  and  ease  of  intercourse  between  the  characters,  drawn, 
as  they  are,  from  different  ranks  of  society — an  absence  of 
reserve  and  restraint  remarkable  in  an  age  with  which  we 
are  apt,  falsely  perhaps,  to  associate  much  of  stateliness 


*  Prologue  to  Canterbury  Tales,  v.  479. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  LITERATURE. 


139 


and  ceremonial.  We  find  here  a  little  social  drama,  as 
it  were,  bearing  strongly  the  stamp  of  nature  and  reality, 
and  the  parties  are  unreservedly  communing  with  each 
other — riding,  talking,  laughing,  eating  together.  Here 
is  the  knight,  “a  very  perfect,  gentle  knight,”  newly 
returned  from  his  adventures,  and  modest  with  the  memo¬ 
ries  of  many  a  battle  on  sea  and  land,  fought  with  the 
Moors  and  the  foes  of  the  faithful  far  away.  With  him 
comes  his  son,  full  of  gayety  and  gallantry,  “  wakeful  as 
a  nightingale  with  his  amorous  ditties;”  and  the  rest  of 
the  company  is  made  up  of  a  demure  prioress,  a  monk,  a 
friar  and  other  ecclesiastical  functionaries;  a  merchant,  a 
franklin,  a  sea-captain,  the  doctor  of  physic,  “whose 
study  was  but  little  on  the  Bible;”  the  lawyer,  “a  very 
busy  man,  yet  seeming  busier  than  he  really  was;”  the 
parson,  drawing  mankind  to  heaven  by  gentleness;  the 
miller,  crafty  in  cheating  his  customers;  the  ploughman, 
a  good,  constant,  labouring  man,  living  in  peace  and 
charity,  working  hard,  and  cheerfully  paying  his  dues  to 
the  church,  along  with  other  hearty  commoners,  spruced 
up  for  the  pilgrimage  in  holiday-dress.  There  is  the  fro¬ 
licsome  wife  of  Bath ;  and  a  very  different  character,  not 
to  be  forgotten,  the  Oxford  student,  silent  or  sententious, 
thoughtful  and  thin  by  dint  of  hard  study,  riding  on  a 
lean  horse  : 

“  He  had  rather  hare  at  his  bed’s  head 
Some  twenty  volumes,  clothed  in  black  or  red, 

Of  Aristotle  and  his  philosophy, 

Than  richest  robes,  fiddle  or  psaltery. 

But  tho’  a  true  philosopher  was  he, 

Yet  had  he  little  gold  beneath  his  key; 

But  every  farthing  that  his  friends  e’er  lent, 

In  books  and  learning  was  it  always  spent.” 


140 


LECTURE  FOURTH. 


These  various  characters  are  brought  into  happy  com¬ 
panionship  •  and  indeed  the  spirit  of  all  Chaucer’s  poetry 
shows  that  if  his  own  lot  was  cast  in  the  company  of  kings 
and  nobles,  his  human  heart  had  large  spaces  to  hold  his 
fellow-beings  in.  His  sympathies  were  with  freedom  in 
all  created  things,  as  in  a  passage,  which  is  enough,  I 
think,  of  itself,  to  open  the  prison-door  and  give  to  liberty 
and  life  again  any  caged  bird  in  the  world. 

“  Where  birds  are  fed  in  cages, 

Though  you  should  day  and  night  tend  them  like  pages, 

And  strew  the  bird’s  room  fair  and  soft  as  silk, 

And  give  him  sugar,  honey,  bread,  and  milk  : 

Yet  had  the  bird,  by  twenty  thousand  fold, 

Rather  be  in  a  forest  wild  and  cold : 

And  right  anon,  let  but  his  door  be  up, 

And  with  his  feet  he  spurneth  down  his  cup, 

And  to  the  wood  will  hie,  and  feed  on  worms. 

In  that  new  college  keepeth  he  his  terms, 

And  learneth  love  of  his  own  proper  kind : 

No  gentleness  of  home  his  heart  may  bind.” 

The  poetry  of  Chaucer  is  distinguished  also  for  what  is 
an  inseparable  quality  of  all  high  poetry,  its  genuine  and 
healthy  morality,  for  true  imagination  is  ever  one  of 
virtue’s  ministers.  The  indelicacy  and  grossness  which 
stain  some  of  his  pages  seem  to  belong  rather  to  the  col¬ 
loquial  coarseness  of  his  times,  than  to  fasten  on  the 
purity  of  his  feelings.  He  pleads  forgiveness  for  these 
blemishes,  as  not  of  evil  intent,  and  it  is  easy  to  follow 
his  advice  when  he  bids  his  reader, 

“  Turn  over  the  leaf,  and  choose  another  tale ; 

For  he  shall  find  enough,  both  great  and  smale, 

Of  storial  thing  that  toucheth  gentilesse, 

And  eke  morality  and  holiness.” 

One  of  the  purest  and  wisest  of  the  great  English  poets 


EARLY  ENGLISH  LITERATURE. 


14 


who  have  succeeded  Chaucer,  has  said  of  him,  “If  Chaucer 
is  sometimes  a  coarse  moralist,  he  is  still  a  great  one.”* 
The  plain-spoken  coarseness  is  a  spot  here  and  there,  but 
the  great  body  of  his  poetry  is  a  poet’s  pure  and  lofty 
discipline,  thoughtful  and  affectionate  reverence  of  womanly 
worth,  teaching  of  Christian  well-doing,  of  heroic  morality, 
and  of  the  morality  of  every-day  life.  He  moralizes  in 
the  poet’s  happiest  mood,  imaginatively,  feelingly,  humor¬ 
ously,  as  when  he  teaches  us  that  much-neglected  art,  the 
art  of  living  with  one  another,  the  social  duty  of  mutual 
forbearance. 


“  One  thing,  sirs,  full  safely  dare  I  say, 
That  loving  friends  each  other  must  obey, 

If  they  would  long  romain  in  company  : 

Love  will  not  be  constrain'd  by  mastery. 

When  mastery  coineth,  the  God  of  Love,  anon 
Beateth  his  wings,  and,  farewell !  he  is  gone. 
Love  is  a  thing  as  any  spirit  free : 

Women,  by  nature,  wish  for  liberty, 

And  not  to  be  constrain’d  as  in  a  thrall; 

And  so  do  men — to  speak  truth — one  and  all. 
Note  well  the  wight  most  patient  in  his  love : 
He  standeth,  in  advantage,  all  above. 

That  patience  is  a  virtue  high,  is  plain, 
Because  it  conquers,  as  the  clerkes  explain, 
Things  that  rude  vigour  never  could  attain. 
Chide  not  for  every  trifle,  nor  complain; 

Learn  to  endure,  or,  so  betide  my  lot, 

Learn  it  ye  shall,  whether  ye  will  or  not. 

For  in  this  world  is  no  one,  certain  ’tis, 

But  that  he  sometimes  doth  or  saith  amiss. 
Anger,  ill  health,  or  influence  malign 
Of  planets,  changes  in  the  blood,  woe,  wine, 


*  Wordsworth,  as  quoted  in  the  Introduction  to  Chaucer  Modern¬ 
ized,  p  xcviii. 


142 


LECTURE  FOURTH. 


Oft  muse  in  word  or  deed  that  we  transgress; 

For,  for  every  wrong  we  should  not  seek  redress. 

After  a  time  there  must  be  temperance 
In  every  man  that  knows  self-governance.” 

There  is  a  deeper  strain  of  poetic  wisdom  on  a  kindred 
subject,  showing  that  indeed  “  we  live  by  admiration,  hope, 
and  love,”  in  that  fine  exposition  of  the  moral  influences 
of  well-directed  affection,  when,  speaking  of  dutiful  love, 
he  says : 

“  In  this  world  no  service  is  so  good 
For  every  wight  that  gentle  is  of  kind, 

For  thereof  comes  all  goodness  and  all  worth  ; 

All  gentleness  and  honour  thence  come  forth  ; 

Thence  worship  comes,  content,  and  true  heart’s  pleasure, 
And  full-assured  trust,  joy  without  measure, 

And  jollity,  fresh  cheerfulness,  and  mirth  : 

And  bounty,  lowliness,  and  courtesy, 

And  seemliness  and  faithful  company, 

And  dread  of  shame  that  will  not  do  amiss.” 

The  same  spirit,  connecting  all  true  passion  with 
its  deeper  moral  associations,  is  to  he  traced  in  that 
stauza  of  Wordsworth’s,  conveying  in  a  few  lines  at  once 
the  simplest  and  sublimest  conception  of  the  passion  of 
Love  : 

“  Learn  by  a  mortal  yearning,  to  ascend 
Towards  a  higher  object.  Love  was  given. 

Encouraged,  sanctioned  chiefly  for  that  end; 

For  this  the  passion  to  excess  was  driven, 

That  self  might  he  annulled :  her  bondage  prove 
The  fetters  of  a  dream,  opposed  to  love.”'* 

Such  is  the  affinity  between  the  souls  of  great  poets, 
though  centuries  are  between  them. 

It  is  now  well-nigh  four  hundred  and  fifty  years  since 


*  Laodamia,  Works,  p.  142.  Am.  Edition. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  LITERATURE. 


143 


the  body  of  Chaucer  was  entombed  in  that  corner  of 
Westminster  Abbey  where,  in  after  generations,  the  pe¬ 
rishable  remains  of  other  of  England’s  great  poets  were 
to  be  gathered  round  his.  Four  centuries  pass  not  over 
the  writings  of  any  mortal  without  defacing  and  oblite¬ 
rating.  Language  is  liable  to  undergo  perpetual  changes; 
any  person  may  observe,  in  even  a  short  space  of  years, 
new  forms  of  expression  coming  into  use,  old  ones 
growing  obsolete.  Time  brings  along  with  it  new  modes 
of  life,  of  thought,  and  action.  Opinions  and  feel¬ 
ings  often  grow  old-fashioned — fall  behind  the  times,  as 
the  phrase  is ;  and,  as  these  are  things  that  enter  so 
largely  into  the  composition  of  books,  it  needs  must  be 
that  they,  too,  grow  old-fashioned,  obsolete,  obscure. 
Chiefly  will  this  happen  when  it  has  fallen  to  an  author’s 
lot  to  write  in  an  unformed  language,  when  the  speech  of 
men  is  made  up  of  various  and  unsettled  dialects,  and, 
therefore,  most  quickly  perishes  for  want  of  that  consist¬ 
ency  which  alone  perpetuates  it.  Time  is  busy  in  the 
work  of  change  with  all  that  is  upon  the  earth  :  the 
brow  is  furrowed,  the  voice  is  broken,  and  the  sight  fails; 
temple  and  tower  moulder  with  its  touch ;  empires  and 
dynasties  are  varying  and  wasting;  but  the  strangest  work 
of  mutability  is  that  which  is  at  work  with  language.  The 
most  wondrous  mortality  the  world  witnesses  is  the  dying 
of  language.  It  almost  baffles  human  conception  to 
speculate  either  upon  the  birth  or  the  death  of  the  mul¬ 
titude,  or  rather  the  family  of  words  that  make  up  a 
nation’s  speech;  to  think  how  thousands  of  mankind 
come  to  utter  their  thoughts  and  feelings  in  the  same 
words  and  the  same  combinations  of  words;  and  then, 
that,  in  the  course  of  time,  as  if  the  earth  and  all  earthly 


144  LECTURE  FOURTII. 

things  should  be  as  changeful  as  the  moon  which  lights 
it,  such  utterance  is  changed,  and  at  length  wholly  lost 
from  the  living  tongue.  Its  sound  becomes  an  uncertain 
and  disputed  thing,  for  it  is  only  seen  on  the  pages  of 
books,  or  it  may  be  only  in  dim  and  dubious  inscriptions 
on  the  broken  column,  the  ruined  arch,  or  the  empty 
monument.  I  know  of  nothing  which  so  teaches  the 
transitoriness  of  things  as  that  phrase  of  mournful  sig¬ 
nificance,  “ a  dead  language.”  How  does  it  startle  us 
in  our  pride,  the  bare  apprehension  of  our  English 
speech  changing  into  a  lifeless  and  mouldy  record — some¬ 
thing  dark  for  scholars  and  antiquaries  vainly  to  attempt 
to  enlighten — something  of  a  degenerate  dialect,  in  which 
might  be  faintly  traced  the  shadows  of  a  mighty  lan¬ 
guage.  The  curse  of  the  confusion  of  tongues  is  an 
unending  curse,  like  the  sentence  of  labour,  on  rebel¬ 
lious  man.  From  the  time  when  the  ambition  of  men 
brought  down  this  penalty,  and  the  whole  earth  ceased  to 
be  “  of  one  language  and  one  speech,”  nations  have  been 
scattered  abroad  upon  the  face  of  all  the  earth,  no  longer 
understanding  one  another’s  speech — oue  generation,  too, 
becoming  unintelligible  to  another.  So  must  it  ever  be 
as  long  as  a  cloud  of  divine  displeasure  travels  onward 
with  the  earth,  casting  down  upon  it  a  dark  shadow  ;  and 
hence  no  language,  no  matter  how  lofty  its  literature  may 
be,  can  boast  a  privilege  from  decay  : 

“  Babylon, 

Learned  and  wise,  bath  perished  utterly, 

Nor  leaves  her  speech  one  word  to  aid  the  sigh 

That  would  lament  her.” 

The  Pyramids,  mysterious  in  their  unnumbered  centu¬ 
ries,  are  standing  almost  as  imperishable  as  the  Nile,  and 


EARI.Y  ENGLISH  LITERATURE. 


H6 


yet  not  one  word  survives  that  was  spoken  by  the  tens  of 
thousands  who  toiled  in  building  them  : 

“  Egyptian  Thebes, 

Tyre  by  the  margin  of  the  sounding  waves, 

Palmyra,  central  in  the  desert,  fell 

and  all  their  dialects  are  silent  as  the  desert  sands.  That 
noble  language,  too,  of  antiquity,  with  which  Athens 
sent  forth  her  philosophy  and  poetry  to  the  islands  of 
the  iEgean  and  the  shores  of  Asia,  and  “  fulmined  over 
Greece  with  her  resistless  eloquence” — the  language 
that  Corinth,  from  her  famous  isthmus,  spake  over  the 
eastern  and  western  waves,  has,  for  many  ages,  known  no 
other  existence  than  that  which  it  Holds  on  the  pages  of 
books.  The  speech  of  the  Roman — 'the  language  of  em¬ 
pire  and  of  law,  spread  by  consul  and  emperor  till  it  was 
stayed  by  the  ocean  and  the  barbarian — how  has  it  ceased 
to  Hold  companionship  with  the  voice,  and  learned  men  of 
modern  times  can  only  conjecture  respecting  its  accent ! 

If  I  have  been  thus  led  into  a  digression  on  the 
changes  which  are  the  destiny  of  all  languages,  let  me 
say,  in  excuse,  that  I  could  scarce  check  the  train  ot 
thought,  being  forced  to  feel  most  painfully  the  perish¬ 
able  nature  of  speech  by  the  reflection  that  it  is  that 
cause  which  has  dimmed  the  glory  of  the  earliest  and  one 
of  the  greatest  of  England’s  poets. 

The  student  of  early  English  literature  must  not  omit  that 
miscellaneous  poetry,  obscure  in  its  origin,  and  indefinite 
in  its  period — the  ancient  Minstrelsy.  It  is  poetry  of 
native  growth,  and  having  the  savour  of  the  soil.  Exist¬ 
ing  for  a  long  time  in  a  traditional  state,  it  has  suffered 
the  waste  which  mere  oral  tradition  is  never  safe  from ; 

and  it  is  only  within  the  last  fifty  years  that  pains  have 
13 


146 


LECTURE  FOURTH. 


been  taken  to  gather  the  rude  strains  of  those  half-civilized 
ages,  and  to  place  them  on  record  at  this  long  distance 
of  time  after  they  existed  as  a  living  poetry.  This  has 
been  done  chiefly  in  Percy’s  Reliques  of  Ancient  English 
Poetry,  and  in  Sir  Walter  Scott’s  Minstrelsy  of  the  Scot¬ 
tish  Border.  It  was  a  fine  trait  in  Scott’s  literary  career, 
the  affectionate  earnestness  with  which  he  laboured  for  the 
recovery  of  the  ancient  lays  of  his  native  land,  and  the  pre¬ 
servation  of  them  in  some  safer  form  than  what  they  had 
in  the  memory  of  aged  persons,  in  times  when  every  year, 
perhaps,  was  casting  them  more  and  more  into  neglect. 
When  Scott  travelled  over  the  country,  highland  and  low¬ 
land,  seeking  in  its  secluded  glens  for  such  remains  of 
the  poetry  of  the  olden  times  as  might  not  yet  be  lost  out 
of  the  recollections  of  an  illiterate  peasantry — snatches  of 
song  remembered  by  the  aged,  as  having  been  chaunted 
by  the  old  folks  of  an  earlier  generation — he  was  not  only 
gathering  materials  to  illustrate  the  literature  of  his 
country,  but  he  was  storing  his  own  mind  with  those  large 
resources  which  his  genius  afterward  poured  forth  with  a 
copiousness  which  was  the  world’s  wonder.  When  the 
authorship  of  Waverley  was  a  secret  vexing  public  curi¬ 
osity,  Professor  Wilson  exclaimed,  “I  wonder  what  all 
these  people  are  perplexing  themselves  with  h  have  they 
forgotten  the  prose  of  the  Minstrelsy?”* 

Of  the  minstrel  poetry  now  extant,  much  belongs  to  a 
period  later  than  the  age  of  Chaucer;  but  there  is  also 
reason  to  believe  that  it  had  a  traditional  connection  with 
a  still  earlier  and  ruder  minstrelsy  that  has  perished.  A 
more  distant  influence  is  to  be  traced  back  to  the  hymns 


*  Lockhart’s  Scott,  vol.  ii.  p.  132. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  LITERATURE. 


147 


and  spiritual  songs  of  the  Church  which  accompanied 
Christianity,  as  it  made  its  spiritual  inroads  on  the  fierce 
idolatries  of  the  races  of  the  North.  For,  although  the 
sacred  services  ehaunted  by  the  early  Christians  and  those 
grand  hymns  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  in  the  Latin  lan¬ 
guage,  still  they  accustomed  the  popular  ear  to  metrical 
sounds,  and  opened  the  hearts  of  the  people  to  the  uses  of 
poetry.  While  the  ancient  classical  poetry  was  sleeping 
its  long  sleep,  to  waken  in  later  ages,  the  sacred  songs  of 
the  early  Christians  were  never  silenced,  even  in  years  of 
persecution;  and  it  is  to  them,  that  the  poetry  of  Christen¬ 
dom  owes  its  first  impulse. 

At  a  remote  age  of  Britain’s  history,  religious  houses 
were  built  there,  and  as  the  holy  men  who  dwelt  in  them, 
amid  aboriginal  ferocities  and  the  turmoil  of  successive 
invasions — the  Saxon  and  the  Dane — uttered  their  songs  of 
adoration,  those  harmonies  went  forth  over  river  and  plain, 
soothing  the  fierce  elements  they  touched,  and  charming 
the  evil  spirit  of  war  which  vexed  the  hearts  of  barbaric 
kings.  The  music  of  a  good  man’s  ehaunted  devotions 
could  not  float  on  the  air,  turbid  and  tumultuous  though 
it  be  with  wicked  passions,  without  awakening  some  pure 
and  gentle  emotions.  A  single  stanza  of  ancient  Saxon 
song  survives  as  a  memorial  of  such  influence.  When  that 
remarkable  personage,  the  Danish  King  Canute,  had  over¬ 
thrown  the  Saxon  dynasty  in  England,  and  was  making  a 
progress  through  his  newly-conquered  realm,  as  with  his 
queen  and  knights  he  approached  by  water  the  Abbey  of 
Ely,  there  arose  upon  the  air  the  voices  of  the  monks, 
chaunting  their  stated  services;  and  when  the  music  fell 
upon  the  conqueror’s  ear  with  such  a  sweet  solemnity, 
chiming  both  with  the  river’s  flow  and  his  own  placid 


LECTURE  FOURTH. 


148 

emotions,  the  sword  of  his  bloody  conquest  sheathed,  the 
active  sympathy  of  his  imagination  found  utterance  in  a 
simple  strain  of  Saxon  soug,  of  which  but  one  stanza  has 
been  spared  by  time : 

“Sweetly  sang  the  monks  in  Ely 
As  Canute  the  king  was  rowing  by : 

‘Knights,  to  the  land  draw  near, 

That  the  monks’  song  we  may  hear.’  ”* 

“  This  accordant  rhyme”  was  the  response  of  one  of  the 
mightiest  of  those  Scandinavian  monarchs,  the  “  Sea-kings,” 
who  struck  terror  into  central  Europe ;  he,  before  whom 
the  ancient  Saxon  dynasty  quailed,  and  whose  barbarian 
flatterers  told  him  that  his  word  had  power  to  stay  the 
surges  of  the  Atlantic;  but,  in  a  happy  moment  of  tran¬ 
quillity,  the  saintly  music  passed  through  the  turbulent 
passions  of  pride  and  power  into  the  depths  of  his  human 
heart. 

The  same  influences  doubtless  touched  the  nation’s 
heart,  and  like  that  rude  royal  strain,  the  popular  song 
echoed  the  music  of  hallowed  verse. 

An  earlier  instance  of  the  power  of  the  imagination  to 
impart  truth,  may  be  remembered  in  that  beautiful  image 
of  the  mystery  of  human  life  which  led  to  the  conver¬ 
sion  of  King  Edwin.  A  Christian  entered  the  hall  of 
the  unconverted  Saxon,  but  the  tidings  he  brought  were 
strange  to  the  pagan  heart,  and  the  king  summons  his 
chiefs  and  priests;  at  that  moment  a  bird  flitted  through 
the  council-hall,  to  call  from  the  wise  imagination  of  one 


*  Lectures  on  the  History  of  England :  by  a  Lady ;  p.  439.  Words¬ 
worth’s  Sonnet.  Works,  p.  295. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  149 

of  the  heathen  councillors  a  lesson,  recorded  by  an  old 
historian,  and  preserved  in  modem  verse: 

“Man’s  life  is  like  a  sparrow,  mighty  king, 

That  while  at  banquet  with  your  chiefs  you  sit, 

Housed  near  a  blazing  tire,  is  seen  to  flit, 

Safe  from  the  wintry  tempest.  Fluttering, 

Here  did  it  enter;  there,  Oft  hasty  wing, 

Flies  out,  and  passes  on  from  cold  to  cold ; 

But  whence  it  came  we  know  not,  nor  behold 
Whither  it  goes.  Even  such,  that  transient  thing, 

The  human  soul,  not  utterly  unknown, 

While  in  the  body  lodged,  the  warm  abode; 

But  from  what  world  she  came,  what  woe  or  weal 
On  her  departure  waits,  no  tongue  hath  shown. 

This  mystery,  if  the  stranger  can  reveal, 

His  be  a  welcome  cordially  bestowed.”* 

Important  as  must  have  been  the  influence  of  the 
metrical  services  of  the  church,  considered  simply  as  a 
means  of  civilization,  the  rude  ages  needed  poetry  for 
other  uses  than  devotion.  They  craved  the  minstrel’s 
power  to  touch  the  stories  of  daring  adventure,  of  wild 
justice  and  revenge,  and  the  tragic  incidents  of  the  field 
and  fireside.  The  earliest  of  the  martial  ballads  comme¬ 
morate  the  exploits  of  a  body  of  bold  outlaws,  in  whose 
lives  there  was  the  last  struggle  against  Norman  tyranny. 
The  strong  hand  of  the  conqueror  had  seized  large  tracts 
of  land  for  royal  hunting-grounds,  the  ancient  owners 
outcast;  and  well  may  the  oppressed  people  have  applauded 
the  exploits  of  the  hardy  archers  who  claimed  their  own 
again  within  the  forbidden  limits,  and  thus  Robin  Hood 
became  indeed  “  the  English  ballad-singers’  joy,”  asserting, 


*  Wordsworth’s  Works,  p.  290.  The  legend  is  in  Fuller’s  Church 
History  of  Britain,  vol.  i.  p.  109. 

K 


13* 


150 


LECTURE  FOURTH. 


as  he  did,  what,  under  a  complicated  tyranny  of  authority, 

seemed 

“  The  good  old  rule,  tho  simple  plan, 

That  they  should  take  who  have  the  power. 

And  they  should  keep  who  can.” 

The  old  songs  have  kept  his  name,  but  no  historian, 
like  Niebuhr  with  the  Roman  legends,  has  unwoven  the 
tangled  threads  of  fact  and  fiction. 

It  would  be  a  study  of  much  interest  to  compare  the 
early  British  ballad  poetry  with  the  other  ballad  poetry 
most  famous  in  European  literature.  I  mean  that  of 
Spain.  Mr.  Lockhart’s  fine  version  of  the  Spanish  ballads, 
and  our  countryman  Mr.  Ticknor’s  recent  classic  work 
on  Spanish  Literature  would  give  facilities  for  the  com¬ 
parison.*  The  higher  civilization  in  Spain,  both  Moorish 
and  Christian,  and  the  struggle  for  centuries  between  the 
two  races,  as  the  Saracen  was  driven  slowly  from  his  last 
foothold  in  the  West  of  Europe,  wars  which  had  the 
dignity  of  the  highest  sentiments  of  religion  and  loyalty, 
the  greater  refinement  of  society — all  these  things  would 
be  found  in  strong  contrast  with  the  rudeness  of  a  poetry, 
picturing  the  feuds  of  petty  chieftains,  and  the  mingled 
ferocity  and  frolic  of  the  border  warfare. 


*  To  mv  friend,  (for  such  he  has  been  for  many  yoars,)  Mr.  Tick- 
nor,  is  in  some  measure  due  the  publication  of  these  Lectures,  for  on 
his  saying  to  me,  in  accidental  conversation  since  my  brother's  death 
that  his  literary,  and  especially  his  poetical,  ju  igments,  were  concur¬ 
rent  with  bis  own,  I  felt  the  assurance  that  I  might,  with  no  furthei 
authority,  give  them  to  the  reading  world.  I  felt,  too,  that  in  pub¬ 
lishing  these  lectures,  I  might  do  something  to  raise  Philadelphia  let¬ 
ters  a  little  nearer  to  tho  high  level  to  which  such  men  as  Prescott, 
and  Ticknor,  and  Longfellow,  and  Hillard,  have  elevated  tho  litera¬ 
ture  of  a  sister  city.  W.  B.  R. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  LITERATURE. 


1„. 


Our  early  minstrelsy,  with  all  its  comparative  rudeness, 
was  not  without  its  gentle  elements;  and  we  can  conceive 
how  it  helped  to  civilize  the  people,  when  we  observe  how 
much  of  pathos  is  woven  into  it,  how  it  tells  of  the  ten¬ 
derness  and  pity  that  are  congenial  with  courage  and  with  the 
love  of  fierce  adventure,  springing  often  out  of  the  sternest 
heart :  thepathosis  social,  too,  so  free  from  sentimentalism, 
and  told  so  simply.  When  Edom  of  Gordon,  in  his  fierce 
assault  on  the  castle,  adding  the  terrors  of  fire  to  those  of 
the  sword,  not  staying  his  spear’s  point  from  the  little 
girl  who  is  lowered  over  the  wall :  as  his  victim  lies  before 
him,  the  blood  dripping  over  her  yellow  hair,  remorse  is 
in  the  words  he  said: 

“You  are  the  first  that  ere 
I  wish’t  alive  again. 

*  *  *  * 

I  might  have  spared  that  bonny  face, 

To  have  been  some  man’s  delight.” 

He  calls  his  men  away  from  his  fierce  victory 

“  Ill  dooms  I  do  guess; 

I  cannot  look  on  that  bonny  face. 

As  it  lies  on  the  grass.” 

This  transition  of  feeling  is  sometimes  given  in  these 
rude  strains  with  deep  effect :  observe  it,  for  instance,  in 
the  contrast  between  the  opening  and  the  close,  in  these 
few  detached  stanzas : 

“Beardslce  rose  up  on  a  May  morning, 

Called  for  water  to  wash  his  hands  ; 

‘  Gar  loose  to  me  the  good  gray  dogs, 

That  are  bound  wi’  iron  bands.’”* 


*  Edom  of  Gordon,  Percy’s  Reliques,  vol.  i.  p.  210.  Johnle  of 
Beardslee,  Motherwell’s  Ancient  and  Modern  Minstrelsy,  vol.  i.  p.  169. 


i52 


LECTURE  FOURTH. 


The  outlaw’s  mother,  with  a  presentiment  of  his  fate, 
entreats  him  to  give  over  what  was  to  prove  a  woful  hunt¬ 
ing,  but  in  vain ;  and  in  spite  of  her  forebodings  and  the 
terrors  of  the  forest-laws,  he  goes  forth.  The  rude  and 
animated  strain  continues: 

“Beardslee  shot,  and  the  dun  deer  leap’d, 

And  he  wounded  her  in  the  side; 

But  a’tween  the  water  and  the  brae, 

His  hounds,  they  laid  her  pride. 

And  Beardslee  has  bryttled  the  deer  so  well, 

That  he’s  had  out  her  livor  and  lungs; 

And  with  these  he  has  feasted  his  bloody  hounds. 

As  if  they  had  been  Earl’s  sons." 

The  hunter  and  his  dogs  fall  asleep,  and  are  surprised 
by  the  foresters,  who  overpower  him,  and,  after  a  desperate 
conflict,  leave  him  dying  in  the  lonely  wood.  The  outlaw’s 
breath  passes  away  in  a  very  gentle  strain  : 

“  0  !  is  there  no  a  bonny  bird 
Can  sing  as  I  can  say, 

Would  flee  away  to  my  mother’s  bower 
And  tell  to  fetch  Beardslee  away. 

There ’s  no  a  bird  in  a’  this  forest 
Will  do  as  mickle  for  me, 

As  dip  its  wing  in  the  wan  water. 

And  streak  it  on  my  o’e  bree.” 

Another  characteristic  of  this  poetry  is  the  remarkable 
dramatic  power  that  pervades  it,  the  vividness  of  the  dia¬ 
logue.  This  is  shown  in  that,  the  finest  specimen  of  all, 
which  Coleridge  called  “  the  grand  old  ballad  of  Sir  Patrick 
Spens.”*  It  is  a  poem  with  a  certain  air  of  historical 


*  Coleridge’s  Poems,  Dejection,  an  Ode,  p.  282. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  LITERATURE. 


153 


interest,  heightened  by  the  mysterious  uncertainty  of  its 
incidents,  and  remarkable  both  for  the  power  of  description 
and  its  depth  of  passion.  It  has  come  down  from  a  re¬ 
mote  antiquit}',  and  has  manifestly  escaped  the  tampering 
of  modern  hands.  Let  me  mention,  respecting  it,  that 
after  I  had  quoted  it  in  a  lecture  of  a  former  course,  I  was 
told  by  one  of  my  very  kind  friends  that  I  had  carried 
him  back  to  the  days  of  his  childhood  in  the  old  country, 
when  he  had  heard  this  very  ballad  chaunted  by  the  old 
Scotch  people,  who  must  have  been  familiar  with  it  only 
by  tradition,  and  not  by  books.  I  mention  this  incident, 
because  it  brought  home  to  my  mind  most  distinctly 
the  manner  in  which  the  minstrel  literature  has  been  per¬ 
petuated.* 

When  the  earliest  poetry  of  Greece,  the  mighty  song 
of  Homer,  was  a  tradition  from  age  to  age,  on  the  shores 
and  the  islands  of  the  HSgean,  with  no  surer  abiding-place 
than  the  memories  and  the  tongues  of  the  llhapsodists, 
the  wisest  of  Athenian  lawgivers,  aud  one  of  the  most 
politic  of  Athenian  statesmen,  made  it  a  part  of  their  wis¬ 
dom  and  their  policy  to  gather  the  scattered  poetry  into 
safer  keeping  for  the  good  of  all  after  generations.  No 
British  Solon,  no  British  Pisistratus,  took  like  heed  for 
Britain’s  early  popular  poetry.  Doubtless,  much  of  it  has 
perished,  and  the  names  of  the  minstrels,  like  the  names 


*  “  The  very  kind  friend,”  to  whom  my  brother  refers,  was  the 
Reverend  Doctor  Wylie,  for  many  years  Vice  Provost  and  Professor  of 
Ancient  Languages  in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  a  man  of  great 
learning  and  eminent  purity  of  character  and  feeling.  He  died  in  1852. 
He  was  a  native  of  the  North  of  Ireland,  and  for  many  years  pastor 
of  the  First  Reformed  Presbyterian  Church  in  this  city.  He  was  a 
man  beloved  by  all  who  knew  him.  W.  B.  11. 


154 


LECTURE  FOURTH. 


of  the  great  church  architects  of  the  Middle  Ages,  have 
perished  utterly.  They  did  their  appointed  work  in  their 
day  and  generation ;  and  again,  when  in  the  last  century, 
(as  I  proprose  to  show  at  a  later  part  of  the  course,)  Eng¬ 
lish  poetry  became  artificial,  feeble,  unreal,  and  sophisti¬ 
cated,  the  early  song  was  revived,  to  breathe  into  it  again 
health,  and  strength,  and  truth. 


LECTURE  V. 


^Txtcraturc  of  tlje  Sidrndlj  Ctnfurg.* 

Dawn  of  letters  a  false  illustration — Intellectual  gloom  from  Edward 
III.  to  Henry  VIII. — Chaucer  to  Spenser — Caxton  and  the  art  of 
printing — Civil  wars — Wyatt  and  Surrey — The  sonnet  naturalized 
in  English  poetry — Blank  vo  se — Henry  VIII. — Edward  VI. — 
Landor’s  sonnet — Sternhold  and  Hopkins — Bishop  Latimer — Good¬ 
win  Sands  and  Tenterden  Steeple — “  Bloody  Mary” — Sackville — 
“The  Mirror  of  Magistrates” — His  career — Age  of  Elizabeth — Con¬ 
trasts  of  her  life — The  Church  as  an  independent  English  power — 
Sluikspeare — Ilis  journey  to  London — Final  formation  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish  language — “  The  well  of  English  undefiled” — The  Reformation 
— Sir  Philip  Sydney — The  Bishop’s  Bible — Richard  Hooker — Spen¬ 
ser  and  Shakspeare — Wilson’s  Criticism  —  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  — 
Shakspeare’s  Prose. 

In  approaching  the  early  English  literature  in  my  last 
lecture,  I  stated  that,  in  forming  a  general  notion  of  the 
extent  of  it,  we  may  regard  the  era  of  our  literature  as  a 
period  of  five  centuries,  from  about  1350  to  the  present 
time — the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century  down  to  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth.  The  student  would,  however, 
be  misled,  were  he  to  believe  as  he  might  natu¬ 
rally  do,  that,  during  those  five  centuries,  there  was  a 
continuous  and  uninterrupted  progress,  that  the  light  of 
literature  was  faithfully  handed  from  sire  to  son,  and  that 
new  fires  were  kindled,  in  due  succession,  to  light  the 
new  ages  as  the  world  moved  on.  Looking  to  that  little 
island  of  our  forefathers,  we  shall  see,  in  its  history,  how 


*'  January  31,  1850. 


155 


156 


LECTURE  FIFTH. 


it  travelled  on  with  other  lights  flashing  over  it  than  the 
quiet  illumination  that  shines  from  the  studious  watch- 
towers  of  poets  and  scholars.  Such  tranquil  beams  were, 
in  many  a  year,  dimmed  by  the  fierce  and  lurid  fires 
which  war  in  its  worst  form,  civil  strife,  and  ecclesiastical 
persecutions  were  casting  over  the  land. 

The  familiar  and  well-known  metaphor  which  has  long 
designated  Chaucer  as  the  “Morning  Star”  of  English 
poetry,  while  it  is  most  apt  in  telling  of  that  primal  and 
fair  shining  in  the  eastern  sky  of  our  literature,  is  not  so 
truthful  in  its  relations  to  the  later  as  to  the  earlier  times. 
The  light  of  day  came  on  too  slowly ;  and,  indeed,  a 
long  night  followed  that  early  outbreak  of  the  imagina¬ 
tion  of  England’s  first  great  poet.  Nearly  two  centuries 
passed  before  another  arose  worthy  to  take  place  beside 
him.  Mr.  Hallam’s  historical  study  of  the  progress  of 
the  European  mind  during  the  Middle  Ages,  has  led  him 
to  remark,  that  “  The  trite  metaphors  of  light  and  dark¬ 
ness,  of  dawn  and  twilight,  are  used  carelessly  by  those 
who  touch  on  the  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  sug¬ 
gest,  by  analogy,  an  uninterrupted  succession,  in  which 
learning,  like  the  sun,  has  dissipated  the  shadows  of  bar¬ 
barism.  But,  with  closer  attention,  it  is  easily  seen  that 
this  is  not  a  correct  representation ;  that  taking  Europe 
generally,  far  from  being  in  a  more  advanced  stage  of 
learning  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century  than 
two  hundred  years  before,  she  had,  in  many  respects,  gone 
backward,  and  gave  little  sign  of  any  tendency  to  recover 
her  ground.  There  is,  in  fact,  no  security,  as  far  as  the 
past  history  of  mankind  assures  us,  that  any  nation  will 
be  uniformly  progressive  in  science,  arts,  and  letters ;  nor 
do  I  perceive,  whatever  may  be  the  current  language, 


LITERATURE  OF  XVI.  CENTURY. 


157 


that  we  can  expect  this  with  much  greater  confidence  of 
the  whole  civilized  world.”  * 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  relapses  of  the  kind  in 
intellectual  advancement  is  the  long  interval  between  the 
death  of  Chaucer,  in  the  year  1400,  and  the  birth  of  the 
next  of  England’s  great  poets,  Edmund  Spenser,  in  1553, 
and  the  appearance  of  tbe  earliest  of  the  great  English 
prose-writers  in  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
This  period  of  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  is,  com¬ 
paratively,  a  desolate  tract  of  time  j  and,  parting  with 
Chaucer  in  the  era  of  the  Middle  Ages,  we  gain  com¬ 
panionship  with  no  other  master-spirit  until,  crossing  the 
threshold  of  modern  times,  the  year  1500,  we  find  our¬ 
selves  in  the  domain  of  the  later  civilization  which  suc¬ 
ceeds  the  thousand  years  that  separate  the  lloman  world 
from  modern  times.  In  this  transition  we  pass,  let  it  also 
be  remembered,  from  the  ages  in  which  the  thoughts  of 
men  and  the  oracles  of  God  were  recorded  only  by  the 
slow  labour  of  the  pen — the  stupendous  toil  which  modern 
art  may  marvel  at  rather  than  despise — into  the  times 
which  become,  in  some  respects,  a  new  intellectual  era  by 
the  agency  of  printing.  It  was  near  a  century  after  the 
death  of  Chaucer  that  the  first  of  English  printers 
died — the  honoured  William  Caxton — whose  life  is  to  be 
thought  of,  like  that  of  the  Venerable  Bede,  as  monitory 
of  “  perpetual  industry  for,  as  the  aged  Saxon  expired 
dictating  the  last  words  of  a  translation  of  St.  John’s 
Gospel  — 

“  In  the  hour  of  death, 

The  last  dear  service  of  his  parting  breath,” 


*  Literature  of  Europe,  chap.  ii.  $  49,  vol.  i.  p.  173. 
14 


168 


LECTURE  FIFTH. 


60  did  the  old  printer  carry  forward  his  last  labour,  on  a 
volume  of  sacred  lore,  to  the  last  day  of  a  life  that  bore 
its  burden  of  four-score  years. 

Having  alluded  to  the  familiar  figure  which  is  so  often 
used  to  typify  the  position  of  the  earliest  of  the  great 
English  authors,  I  may  correct  the  error  which  might, 
unawares  be  connected  with  it  by  another  metaphor, 
which  the  memory  can  easily  keep  hold  on.  With  a 
beauty  of  illustration,  which  does  not  often  adorn  the 
pages  of  Warton’s  History  of  English  Poetry,  he  happily 
compares  the  appearance  of  Chaucer  in  the  language  to  a 
premature  day  in  spring,  after  which  the  gloom  of  winter 
returns,  and  the  buds  and  blossoms,  which  have  been 
called  forth  by  a  transient  sunshine,  are  nipped  by  frosts 
and  scattered  by  storms.* 

Difficult  as  it  may  be  to  discover  in  the  history  of  the 
human  mind  why,  at  particular  periods,  it  bursts  forth  with 
such  power,  and  at  other  times  lies  so  torpid,  we  may 
trace  with  some  confidence  causes  which  at  least  help  to 
account  for  this  long  and  dismal  blank  between  the  reign 
of  Edward  the  Third  and  that  of  Queen  Elizabeth — the 
whole  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  a  large  part  of  the  six- 


•  “  I  consider  Chaucer  as  a  genial  day  in  an  English  spring.  A  bril¬ 
liant  sun  enlivens  the  face  of  nature  with  an  unusual  lustre  ;  the  sudden 
appearance  of  cloudless  skies,  and  the  unexpected  warmth  of  a  tepid 
atmosphere,  after  the  gloom  and  inclemencies  of  a  tedious  winter,  fill 
our  hearts  with  the  visionary  prospects  of  a  speedy  summer;  and  we 
fondly  anticipate  along  continuance  of  gentle  gales  and  vernal  serenity. 
But  winter  returns  with  redoubled  horrors;  the  clouds  condense  more 
formidably  than  before  ;  and  those  tender  buds,  and  early  blossoms, 
which  were  called  forth  by  the  transient  gleam  of  a  temporary  sun¬ 
shine,  are  nipped  by  frost  and  torn  by  tempests.”  Warton,  vol.  ii. 
p.  51.  W.  B.  R. 


LITERATURE  OF  XVI.  CENTURY. 


159 


teenth :  seven  reigns  of  disputed  legitimacy,  thirty  years 
of  civil  slaughter,  first  brutalizing  and  then  crushing  the 
nation’s  heart,  the  bloody  variance  of  a  feudal  nobility,  a 
long  series  of  battles,  so  fierce  in  their  vengeance  that  the 
very  flowers,  the  innocent  flowers,  were  torn  from  the  once 
peaceful  gardens  to  be  made  the  emblems  of  unrelenting 
warfare;  and  then,  when  these  evils  had  passed  away, 
there  came  the  darker  strife  of  a  nation’s  distracted 
church-persecution  and  the  fiery  terrors  of  the  stake. 

Chaucer  had  outlived  the  superb  reign  of  Edward  the 
Third,  with  its  half  century  of  lofty  dominion.  lie  had 
seen  the  miserable  ending  of  Edward’s  giddy  grandson, 
the  second  Richard,  thrust  from  his  throne  by  “  mounting 
Bolingbroke.”  The  cycle  of  the  fortune  of  these  Lan¬ 
castrian  Plantagenets,  reaching  its  highest  splendour  in  the 
foreign  victories  of  the  fifth  Henry,  had  its  sad  completion 
in  the  disasters  of  the  next  reign,  and  the  tragic  death  of 
the  last  of  the  house  of  Lancaster.  The  heart  of  the  nation 
was  suffering  the  grievous  wasting  of  all  that  might  have 
been  dear  to  it,  by  the  evil  passions  engendered  in  that 
most  deplorable  of  all  political  and  social  conditions,  civil 
warfare;  a  strife  always  the  fiercest  and  most  unrelenting, 
for,  the  ties  once  broken,  which  had  bound  men  together 
by  the  unconscious  bonds  of  instinctive  feelings,  bewildered 
humanity  looks  on  the  once  dearest  friend  as  the  direst 
foe.  “The  bells  in  the  church  steeples,”  writes  an  old 
church  historian,  “  were  not  heard  for  the  souud  of  drums 
and  trumpets.”*  The  learned  were  not  listened  to,  or 
rather  were  hushed  into  silence,  and  the  humanizing 
music  of  poetry  was  unknown.  How  could  the  intellect 


*  Fuller,  vol.  i.  p.  54. 


160 


LECTURE  FIFTH 


adventure  any  thing  when  the  heart  was  appalled  !  How 
could  the  imagination  aspire  when  overwhelmed  by  tlu 
dark  aud  fearful  pressure  of  the  present  !■ 

Thus  passed  one  hundred  years  of  the  century  aud  & 
half  which  lies  between  that  genial  age  in  which  Chaucei 
flourished,  and  the  other  more  genial  era,  that  of  the 
Elizabethan  literature. 

In  looking  at  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century 
■ — nearly  the  first  half  of  it  occupied  by  the  reign  of 
Henry  VIII. — it  is  pleasing  to  find  some  literary  interest 
in  a  period  which  is  associated  chiefly  with  ecclesiastical 
change  and  the  second  Tudor’s  domestic  tyranny.  An 
abiding  impression  on  the  nation’s  literature  was  made  at 
that  time  by  two  writers,  whose  names  from  early  and  long 
association  are  scarce  separable — men  of  noble  birth  and 
character — Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  the  lover  of  Anne  Boleyn, 
and  Henry  Howard,  the  ill-fated  Earl  of  Surrey.  Surrey, 
especially,  is  esteemed  as  one  of  the  improvers  of  Eng¬ 
lish  verse.  Acquainted  with  the  refinements  of  Italian 
verse,  acquired  either  by  personal  intercourse  or  by  study, 
he  introduced  important  changes  into  that  of  England. 
The  language  was  made  at  once  more  graceful  and  simple ; 
and  Italian  forms  of  verse  introduced.  The  Sonnet  was 
naturalized  into  English  poetry,  to  disclose  in  later  times 
that  wondrous  variety  of  power  and  of  beauty  which  has 
been  proved,  within  its  narrow  limits,  by  Milton  and  by 
Wordsworth.  The  English  versification  was  more  exactly 
disciplined ;  and  to  Surrey  is  due  the  merit  of  having 
given  the  first  example  of  blank  verse;  that  form  which  has 
so  eminently  adapted  itself  to  the  language  aud  to  the 
English  poet’s  desires,  that  it  has  been  well  said  to  deserve 
the  name  of  “  the  English  metre;”  a  construction  which 


LITERATURE  OF  XVI.  CENTURY. 


161 


from  time  to  time  has  been  revealing  the  musical  re¬ 
sources  of  its  unexhausted  variety,  in  the  dramatic  lan¬ 
guage  of  Shakspeare,  the  epic  of  the  Paradise  Lost,  in 
the  homelier  strains  of  the  Task,  in  the  heroic  romance 
of  Roderic,  and  in  the  philosophy  of  the  Excursion. 
Such  is  our  English  blank-verse,  alike  it  may  be  to  the 
eye,  but  wonderfully  varied  to  the  ear,  and  to  that  inner 
spiritual  sense  which  seems,  even  more  than  the  organ  of 
hearing,  to  take  cognizance  of  the  music  of  poetry ;  and 
admitting,  too,  of  some  characteristic  impress  from  the 
genius  of  every  great  poet  that  has  used  it. 

There  gathered  round  this  noble  poet  all  that  could 
dignify  and  endear  him  to  his  own  times  and  to  after 
times — a  lofty  lineage,  rank,  genius,  virtue,  loyalty,  faith¬ 
ful  and  honourable  services ;  but  for  his  bright  career  as 
scholar,  courtier,  soldier,  there  was  a  dark  destiny  of  blood. 
In  our  earliest  knowledge  of  English  history,  one  of  the 
first  and  most  vivid  impressions  is  that  which  we  have  of 
the  household  atrocities  of  the  eighth  Henry — to  a  child’s 
fiincy,  the  British  Bluebeard — driving  to  divorce  or  death 
his  wives,  the  mothers  of  his  children,  and  devoting  more 
than  one  fair  neck,  once  fondly  embraced,  to  the  bloody 
handling  of  the  headsman.  What  reign,  in  the  range 
of  history,  more  execrable !  and  the  last  act  of  it  cast  a 
shadow  on  the  annals  of  English  literature.  Henry 
Howard  had  been  in  childhood  an  inmate  of  the  palace,  a 
playmate  of  royal  children  ;  and  when  he  grew  to  manhood 
he  was  a  loyal  and  honoured  courtier,  a  brave  and  trusted 
soldier.  But  it  was  Surrey’s  crime,  his  only  crime,  to 
bear  the  name  of  Howard,  a  name  which  had  newly  grown 
hateful  to  the  despot’s  ear.  He  was  committed,  on  a 
charge  of  treason,  to  the  Tower;  and  in  the  very  week 
14* 


162 


LECTURE  FIFTH. 


in  wliicli  Henry  VIII.  died,  the  gallant  Surrey,  at 
the  age  of  twenty-seven,  laid  down  his  head  upon  the 
scaffold. 

Let  me  add  a  vivid  description  of  the  close  of  Ilenry’f 
reign,  and  its  connection  with  Howard’s  tragic  end,  to 
fix  the  memory  of  this  early  author  by  the  help  of  the 
dread  association. 

“It  is  fearful,”  says  the  author  from  whom  I  quote, 
“but  not  unsalutary,  to  cast  a  parting  glance  at  the  vicious 
body7  of  Henry  VIII.  after  its  work  upon  the  earth  was 
done.  It  lay,  immovable  and  helpless,  a  mere  corrupt 
and  bloated  mass  of  tyranny.  No  friend  was  near  to  com¬ 
fort  it;  not  even  a  courtier  dared  to  warn  it  of  its  coming 
hour.  The  men  alone  it  had  gorged  with  the  offal  of  its 
plunder,  hurry  back  in  affright  from  its  perishing  agonies, 
in  disgust  from  its  ulcerous  sores.  It  could  not  move  a 
limb  nor  lift  a  hand.  The  palace-doors  were  made  wider 
for  its  passage  through  them ;  and  it  could  only  then  pass 
by  means  of  machinery.  Yet  to  the  last  it  kept  its  ghastly 
state,  descended  daily  from  bed-chamber  into  room  of 
kingly  audience  through  a  hole  in  the  palace  ceiling,  and 
was  nightly,  by  the  same  means,  lifted  back  again  to  its 
sleepless  bed.  And  to  the  last,  unhappily  for  the  world, 
it  had  its  terrible  indulgences.  Before  stretched  in  that 
helpless  state  of  horror,  its  latest  victim  had  been  a  Plan- 
tagenct.  Nearest  to  itself  in  blood  of  all  its  living  kindred, 
the  Countess  of  Salisbury  was,  in  her  eightieth  year, 
dragged  to  the  scaffold  for  no  pretended  crime,  save  that 
of  corresponding  with  her  son ;  and  having  refused  to  lay 
her  head  upon  the  block,  (it  was  for  traitors  to  do  so,  she 
said,  ‘  and  she  was  none,’)  but  moving  swiftly  round,  and 
tossing  it  from  side  to  side  to  avoid  the  execution,  she 


LITERATURE  OE  XVI.  CENTURY. 


1G3 


was  struck  down  by  the  weapons  of  the  neighbouring  men- 
at-arms,  and  while  her  gray  hairs  streamed  with  blood, 
and  her  neck  was  forcibly  held  down,  the  axe  discharged, 
at  length,  its  dreadful  office.  The  last  victim  of  all 
followed  in  the  graceful  and  gallant  person  of  the  young 
Lord  Surrey.  The  dying  tyranny,  speechless  and  inca¬ 
pable  of  motion,  had  its  hand  lifted  up  to  affix  the  formal 
seal  to  the  death-warrant  of  the  poet,  the  soldier,  the 
statesman,  and  scholar,  and  on  ‘  the  day  of  the  execution,’ 
according  to  Ilolliushed,  was  itself  ‘  lying  in  the  agonies 
of  death.’  Its  miserable  comfort,  then,  was  the  thought 
that  youth  was  dying  too ;  that  the  grave  which  yawned 
for  abused  health,  indulged  lusts,  and  monstrous  crimes 
had,  in  the  same  instant,  opened  at  the  feet  of  manly 
health,  of  generous  grace,  of  exquisite  genius,  and  model 
virtue.  And  so  perished  Henry  VIII.”* 

We  pass  on  from  the  long  and  odious  reign  of  the  sire 
to  the  short  rule  of  his  innocent  and  tender-hearted  son, 

“  King,  child,  and  seraph,  blended  in  the  mien 
Of  pious  Edward.”f 

As  the  mind  passes  from  this  detested  father  to  his  son — 
gentle  Jane  Seymour’s  gentle  son — one  cannot  but  think 
how  it  exemplifies  the  truth  which  Landor’s  lines  have 
told  : 

“  Children  are  wbat  the  mothers  are. 

No  fondest  father’s  wisest  care 
Can  fashion  so  the  infant  heart, 

As  those  creative  beams  that  dart, 

With  all  their  hopes  and  fears,  upon 
The  cradle  of  a  sleeping  son. 


*  Forster's  Treatise  on  Popular  Progress, 
t  Wordsworth’s  Coll.  Ed.  p.  301. 


LECTURE  FIFTn. 


lfrl 


His  startled  eyes  with  wonder  see 
A  father  near  him  on  his  knee, 

Who  wishes  all  the  while  to  traco 
The  mother  in  his  future  face; 

But  ’tis  to  her  alone  uprise 

His  wakening  arms,  to  her  those  eyes 

Open  with  joy,  and  not  surprise.”'* 

Another  copartnership  in  letters,  closer  than  that  of 
Surrey  and  Wyatt,  and  suggesting  another  kind  of  as¬ 
sociations,  may  he  noticed  in  that  part  of  the  sixteenth 
century  which  belongs  to  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.  I 
refer  to  the  first  version  of  the  Psalms  of  David  in 
English  metre,  produced  by  two  writers — whose  names 
have  become  the  symbols  of  dulness  and  clumsy  versifi¬ 
cation — Thomas  Sternhold  and  John  Hopkins.  Un¬ 
doubtedly  the  grandeur  of  the  Hebrew  Psalmody  is  very 
inadequately  represented  in  the  flat  and  prosaic  diction 
and  the  awkward  metres  of  these  two  good  men ;  but  it 
should  be  remembered  that  a  worthy  translation  of  the 
Psalms  into  English  metre  has  never  yet  been  achieved; 
and,  indeed,  the  best  judges  make  question  of  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  such  version.  If  this  old  version,  three  hundred 


*  Mr.  Landor’s  poems  are  so  scattered,  and  in  their  modes  of  publi¬ 
cation  so  fugitive,  that  they  must  often  be  quoted  at  second-hand.  I 
find  these  verses  marked  with  my  brother’s  pencil  in  a  little  French 
volume  called,  “La  Petite  Chouannerie,  ou  Histoired’unCoIlege  Breton 
sous  l'Empire,  par  A.  F.  Rio,”  p.  296.  I  am  tempted  to  put  on  these 
pages  the  following  lines,  by  Landor,  on  Charles  Lamb,  which  ap¬ 
peared  during  the  present  year  in  the  Examiner  newspaper: 

“  Candid  old  man  !  what  youth  was  in  thy  years  ! 

What  wisdom  in  thy  levity !  what  truth 
In  every  utterance  of  that  purest  soul ! 

Few  are  the  spirits  of  the  glorified 

I’d  spring  to  earlier  at  the  gates  of  heaven  !”  W.  B.  R. 


LITERATURE  OF  XVI.CEXTURY. 


165 


years  ago,  is  rude  and  uncouth,  honourable  testimony  has 
been  borne  to  its  fidelity  to  the  Hebrew  original.  The 
version  of  later  times,  now  most  in  use,  is  at  once  tame 
and  tawdry,  (worse  faults  than  rudeness,)  taking,  too,  larger 
license  with  the  original,  and  “  generally,”  it  is  said,  “  sacri¬ 
ficing  altogether  the  direct,  lightning-like  force  of  the 
inspired  sentences.”* 

Much  of  Sternhold  and  Hopkins’s  version  would  cer¬ 
tainly  now  so  affect  the  dainty  modern  ear,  as  to  give  a 
sense  of  ridicule  most  incongruous  to  the  theme  ;  but  the 
reproach  that  rests  on  the  old  version  may  be  lightened  a 
little,  when  we  meet  with  a  stanza  like  this: 

“  The  Lord  descended  from  above,  and  bowed  the  heavens  most  high. 

And  underneath  his  feet  he  east  the  darkness  of  the  sky; 

On  cherub  and  on  cherubim  full  royally  he  rode, 

And  on  the  wings  of  mighty  winds  came  flying  all  abroad.’’'^ 

However  rude  this  version  was,  it  has  a  claim  to  re¬ 
spect  as  the  first  that  fitted  to  English  lips  the  music  of 
the  royal  inspired  singer;  and  as  the  homely  verses  were, 
years  after,  familiarized  in  the  people’s  devotions,  the 
imagery  of  the  Hebrew  poetry  was  sinking  into  the  hearts 
if  the  men  of  England,  and  helping  to  form  that  sacred 
character  which  is  the  glory  of  all  the  highest  inspirations 
of  English  poetry. 

The  progress  of  English  prose,  as  it  was  slowly  ad¬ 
vancing  to  its  best  estate,  appears,  at  the  period  I  have 
been  speaking  of,  in  the  sermons  of  him  whose  intrepid 
spirit  and  cheerful  constancy  sustained  him  in  the  hour  of 

*  Keble. 

f  Psalm  xviii.  9,  10.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  more  modern  para- 
phrasers  of  the  Psalms  have  generally  shrunk  from  rendering  thes-j 
verses  into  their  slender  English.  W.  B.  R. 

L 


LECTURE  FIFTH. 


H!0 

.Martyrdom — Hugh  Latimer,  Bishop  of  Worcester.  It 
was  in  a  sermon  preached  before  Edward  VI.  ihat  he  in¬ 
troduced,  in  accordance  with  the  quaint  pulpit-oratory  of 
the  times,  the  well-known  illustration  of  the  Goodwin 
Sands  and  Tenterden  Steeple,  in  reply  to  a  very  common 
fallacy;  and  the  passage  may  be  quoted  to  show  the  cha¬ 
racter  of  the  prose,  which  was  then  equal,  at  least,  to 
simple  purposes  of  natural  narrative : 

“  Here  was  preaching,”  he  says,  “  against  covetousness 
all  the  last  year  in  Lent,  and  the  next  summer  followed 
rebellion ;  ergo  preaching  1  against’  covetousness  was  the 
cause  of  rebellion.  A  goodly  argument ! 

“  Here,  now,  I  remember  an  argument  of  Master 
More’s,  which  he  bringeth  in  a  book  that  he  made  against 
Bilney;  and  here,  by  the  way,  I  will  tell  you  a  merry 
toy.  Master  More  was  once  sent  in  commission  into  Kent, 
to  help  to  try  out,  if  it  might  be,  what  was  the  cause  of 
Goodwin  Sands  and  the  shelf  that  stopped  up  Sandwich 
Haven.  Thither  cometh  Master  More,  and  calleth  the 
country  afore  him — such  as  were  thought  to  be  men  of 
experience,  and  men  that  could,  of  likelihood,  best  certify 
him  of  the  matter  concerning  the  stopping  of  Sandwich 
Haven.  Among  others,  came  in  before  him  an  old  man 
with  a  white  head,  and  one  that  was  thought  to  be  little 
less  than  an  hundred  years  old.  When  Master  More 
saw  this  aged  man,  he  thought  it  expedient  to  hear  him 
say  his  mind  in  the  matter;  for,  being  so  old  a  man,  it 
was  likely  he  knew  most  of  any  man  in  that  presenco 
and  company.  So  Master  More  called  this  old  aged  man 
unto  him  and  said,  1  Father,’  said  he,  ‘  tell  me,  if  ye  can, 
what  is  the  cause  of  this  great  arising  of  the  sands  and 
shelves  here  about  this  haven,  the  which  stop  it  up  that 


LITERATURE  OF  XVI.  CENTURf. 


167 


no  ships  can  arrive  here  ?  Ye  are  the  eldest  man  that  I 
can  espy  in  all  this  company,  so  that  if  any  man  can  tell 
any  cause  of  it,  ye,  of  likelihood,  can  say  most  in  it,  or, 
at  leastwise,  more  than  any  other  man  here  assembled.’ 
‘Yen,  forsooth,  good  master,’  quoth  this  old  man,  ‘for  1 
am  well-nigh  an  hundred  years  old,  and  no  man  here  in 
this  company  any  thing  near  unto  mine  age.’  ‘Well, 
then,’  quoth  Master  More,  ‘how  say  you  in  this  matter? 
What  think  ye  to  be  the  cause  of  these  shelves  and  flats 
that  stop  up  Sandwich  Haven  ?’  ‘  Forsooth,’  quoth  he, 

1 1  am  an  old  man  ;  I  think  that  Tentcrden  Steeple  is  the 
cause  of  Goodwin  Sands.  For  I  am  an  old  man,  sir,’ 
quoth  he,  ‘  and  I  may  remember  the  building  of  Tenter- 
den  Steeple,  and  I  may  remember  when  there  was  no 
steeple  at  all  there.  And  before  that  Tenterden  Steeple 
was  in  building,  there  was  no  manner  of  speaking  of  any 
flats  or  sands  that  stopped  the  haven ;  and,  therefore,  I 
think  that  Tenterden  Steeple  is  the  cause  of  the  destroy¬ 
ing  affd  the  decay  of  Sandwich  Haven.’  And  even  so,  to 
my  purpose,  is  preaching  of  God’s  word  the  cause  of  re¬ 
bellion,  as  Tenterden  Steeple  was  cause  Sandwich  Haven 
is  decayed.” 

There  is  one  sentence  of  English  words  uttered  by  this 
same  divine,  which  has  a  deeper  and  more  enduring  inte¬ 
rest,  and  that  was  when  he  and  Ridley  stood  in  their 
dread  fellowship  of  martyrdom  at  the  stake;  when  the 
fagot,  kindled  with  fire,  was  brought  and  laid  at  Ridley’s 
/  feet,  Latimer,  happy,  as  the  martyr’s  crown  was  poised 
above  his  brow,  on  which  four-score  years  had  placed  their, 
crown  of  glory,  spake  in  this  manner :  “  Re  of  good 
cheer,  Master  Ridley,  and  play  the  man ;  we  shail  this 


168 


EECTURE  FIFTH. 


day  light  such  a  candle,  by  God’s  grace,  in  England,  as, 
I  trust,  shall  never  he  put  out.”* 

The  gentle  Edward’s  reign  had  too  quickly  given  place 
to  his  sister’s — that  hateful  reign — when  the  palace  of 
England’s  monarchs  grew  dark  with  the  power  of  the 
detested  Spaniard,  and  the  long  list  of  martyrs  fastened 
forever  the  title  of  “  blood"  to  the  sweetest  of  female 
names.  Just  at  the  close  of  Queen  Mary’s  reign,  Eng¬ 
lish  literature  produced  one  work,  showing  a  force  of 
imagination  which  would  have  placed  its  author  in  the 
highest  rank  of  our  poets,  had  he  not  turned  his  genius 
away  from  poetic  study  to  devote  it,  during  a  very  long 
life,  to  the  political  service  of  his  country.  “  The  Mir¬ 
ror  of  Magistrates”  is  the  title  of  a  work  planned  by 
Thomas  Sackville — Lord  Buckhurst — and  intended  to 
comprise  a  series  of  poetic  narratives  of  the  disasters  of 
men  eminent  in  English  story.  The  first  of  these,  on  the 
Duke  of  Buckingham,  with  the  preface,  or  “  Induc¬ 
tion,”  as  it  is  styled,  was  all  that  was  accomplished*;  but 
those  four  hundi’ed  lines  displayed  an  inventive  energy 
which  was  a  foreshadowing  of  the  allegorical  imagination 
which  soon  after  rose  in  “  The  Faery  Queen.”  Sack- 
ville’s  Induction  stands  as  the  chief,  the  only  great  poem 
between  the  times  of  Chaucer  and  of  Spenser.  Allego¬ 
rical  poetry  presents  no  more  vivid  imagination  than  his 
personification  of  war,  or  of  old  age,  in  that  single  line 

“  His  withered  fist  still  striking  at  death’s  door.” 

What  a  gloomy  conception  was  the  plan  of  the  poem  ! 
It  has  been  likened  to  a  landscape  which  the  sun  never 
shines  on.  More  than  that  might  be  said,  when  we  think 


*  Life  of  Latimer,  prefixed  to  his  Sermons,  vol.  i.  p.  clvii. 


LITERATURE  OF  XVI.  CENTURY. 


169 


how  congenial  it  was  to  the  time  of  its  composition. 
There  hung  on  Sackville’s  genius  not  only  a  dark  gloom, 
but  it  may  be  thought  to  have  caught  a  ghastly  com¬ 
plexion  from  the  lurid  lights  of  the  flames  of  religious 
persecution.  We  may  picture  this  thoughtful  poet,  turn¬ 
ing  his  footsteps  beyond  the  confines  of  London,  on  a 
winter’s  day,  the  dreary  season  described  at  the  opening 
of  the  poem 

“Wandering  till  nightfall, 

The  darke  had  ditnm’d  the  day  ere  I  was  ’ware.” 

And  what  was  the  spectacle  he  might  have  encountered  ? 
The  dispersing  throng  that  had  just  gathered  round  the 
stake,  where  flames  had  wrapped  a  martyr’s  body,  the  fire  not 
yet  burnt  out  in  the  smouldering  ashes;  perhaps  the  deso¬ 
late  family,  the  outcast  wife  and  children,  lingering  near 
the  spot  where  a  spiritual  hero  had  sealed  his  faith.  It 
was  a  fit  season  for  poetry’s  darkest  imaginings,  and  well 
might  Sackville  frame  his  gloomy  personification  of  sor¬ 
row  to  guide  him  in  fancy  into  the  realms  of  death,  to 
hear  there,  from  the  lips  of  the  dead,  the  stories  of  their 
woes.  Under  this  dreary  guidance,  his  genius  entered 
into  the  shadowy  domains  of  imagination  ;  but  soon  after 
he  brought  the  powers  of  his  mind  forth  into  the  world’s 
political  service,  in  which  he  continued  during  the  whole 
of  Elizabeth’s  reign,  and  part  of  that  of  her  successor, 
when  the  hand  of  death  was  laid  upon  the  veteran  states¬ 
man  suddenly,  at  the  council-board  of  James  I.  It  is  a 
remarkable  fact  that,  in  actual  life,  he  personally  witnessed 
two  reverses  of  fortune — political  downfalls  transcending 
any  his  tragic  muse  could  have  called  up  in  his  mournful 
poem.  Sackville  was  one  of  the  judicial  tribunal  which 
pronounced  the  doom  of  Mary  Stuart :  it  was  from  his 
15 


170 


LECTURE  FIFTH. 


lips  that  the  unhappy  Queen  received  the  message  of  her 
doom  ;  and  it  was  part  of  his  stern  duty  to  behold  the  last 
look  of  that  royal  fair  one,  the  “  long  array  of  woes  and 
degradations”  at  length  closing,  and  to  witness  the  blow 
which  severed  from  a  now  wasted  body  the  head  that  once 
had  glittered  with  the  diadems  of  France  and  of  Scotland. 
It  was  also  Lord  Buckhurst’s  lot  (and  these  were  per¬ 
haps  the  only  two  calamities  of  his  long  and  honourable 
career)  to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  Earl  of  Essex,  when  that 
nobleman  fell  from  his  high  place  of  queenly  favour. 

The  reign  of  Mary  was  followed  by  a  period  more  pro¬ 
pitious  to  the  national  literature,  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  That  half  century,  almost  entire,  was  the 
time  of  her  sister’s  reign.  In  styling  it  the  Elizabethan 
literature,  there  is  a  propriety  beyond  mere  chronological 
convenience,  for  the  influences  of  her  reign  were  in  mani¬ 
fold  ways  favourable  to  the  development  of  the  mind,  to 
the  expression  of  thought  and  feeling.  The  heart  of  the 
sovereign  beat  with  the  heart  of  the  people  ;  and  chivalry 
mingled  with  loyalty  to  do  honour  to  the  woman-monarch. 
Such  was  the  predominant  feeling,  passing,  indeed,  often 
into  the  extravagance  of  adulation,  but  outlasting  all  her 
pomp  and  powers;  for,  in  the  preface  to  our  English  ver¬ 
sion  of  the  Bible  she  stands  recorded  in  the  glowing 
phrase,  “that  bright  occidental  star,  Queen  Elizabeth,  of 
most  happy  memory.”  In  her  sway,  there  was  a  magna¬ 
nimity,  which  she  had  learned  not  in  the  luxuries  of  regal 
childhood,  but  in  the  school  of  adversity  and  a  doubtful 
destiny.  History  presents  no  finer  contrast  than  between 
those  two  days  of  her  life :  the  first,  when,  a  culprit  on 
suspicion  of  treason,  she  was  brought  in  custody  along 
the  Thames,  to  be  committed  to  the  Tower,  and  perceiving 


LITERATURE  OF  XVI.  CENTURY. 


171 


that  the  barge  was  steering  to  the  traitor’s  gate,  she  re¬ 
fused  to  enter  that  guilty  portal,  and  in  the  utter  destitu¬ 
tion  of  a  young  and  unfriended  woman,  called  God  to  wit¬ 
ness  she  was  innocent ;  when  the  first  intelligence  that 
reached  her  as  a  prisoner  was  that  the  scaffold  had 
already  drunk  the  blood  of  a  meeker  victim,  the  Lady 
Jane  Grey,  and  she  knew  it  was  thirsting  for  hers.  After  a 
few,  though  weary  and  dismal  years,  she  was  again  an  inmate 
of  the  ancient  fortress  of  the  metropolis,  but  it  was  to  go 
forth  the  Queen  of  a  rejoicing  nation,  surrounded  by  cohorts 
of  herdevoted  nobles,  and  multitudes  of  a  happy  people :  and 
when  before  the  crown  was  set  upon  her  brow,  lifting  her 
eyes  to  heaven,  she  poured  forth  her  fervid  thankfulness  to 
the  Almighty  for  his  wondrous  dealings,  for  his  won¬ 
drous  mercies.  “  Wherever  she  moved,”  says  the  record  of 
this  the  first  of  her  magnificent  progresses,  “  it  was  to  be 
greeted  by  the  prayers,  the  shouts,  the  tender  words,  and 
uplifted  hands  of  the  people :  to  such  as  bade  ‘  God  save 
your  grace,’  she  said  again,  ‘  God  save  you  all ;’  so  that  on 
either  side  there  was  nothing  but  gladness,  nothing  but 
prayer,  nothing  but  comfort.”* 

Such  was  the  fit  opening  of  a  reign  for  which  was  des¬ 
tined  the  highest  glory  that  has  dwelt  with  the  nation’s 
language  and  literature.  An  impulse  was  given  by  the 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  condition  of  the  realm,  for  it 
abounded  in  all  that  could  cheer  and  animate  a  nation’s 
heart.  There  was  repose  from  the  agony  of  spiritual  per¬ 
secution,  submission  to  Rome  was  at  an  end,  and  the 
church  in  England  was  once  more  standing  on  its  ancient 


*  Hollinshed,  as  quoted  in  Miss  Strickland’s  “  Queens  cf  England.” 
vol.  vi.  chap,  iv,  p.  127,  Am.  ed. 


172 


LECTURE  FIFTH. 


British  foundations.  It  mattered  little  what  foreign  dan¬ 
ger  threatened,  for  there  was  the  proud  sense  of  national 
independence  and  national  power,  its  moral  force  greater 
even  than  its  physical.  I  have  spoken  this  evening  of 
wars,  like  the  wars  of  York  and  Lancaster,  fraternal  feuds, 
which  waste  and  harden  a  nation’s  heart;  but  there  are 
wars  of  another  kind  which  animate  that  heart  with  a 
high  enthusiasm,  a  truth  well  proclaimed  in  a  strain  of 
lyrical  poetry,  fitting  the  ebb  and  flow  which  belong  to 
that  species  of  song  to  truth’s  varied  aspects : 

“War  is  passion’s  basest  game, 

Madly  played  to  win  a  name. 

*  *-  Si  * 

War  is  mercy,  glory,  fame, 

Waged  in  freedom’s  holy  cause, 

Freedom  such  as  man  may  claim, 

Under  God’s  restraining  laws.”* 

The  same  year  in  which  Shakspeare  is  supposed  to 
have  gone  up  from  Stratford  to  London  was  a  proud  one 
in  his  country’s  anuals,  for  it  was  then  that  stout  hearts 
and  the  stormy  alliance  of  the  ocean  saved  the  soil  from 
the  pollution  of  foreign  invasion,  and  the  boastful  attempt 
of  the  Spaniard,  whose  hateful  presence  in  the  palace 
when  he  shared  the  throne  was  not  forgotten,  and  who 
was  coming  now  with  the  terrors  of  the  Inquisition  in 
his  train.  When  the  scattered  remnants  of  the  Armada 
were  driven,  not  back  to  the  ports  of  Spain,  but  as  far 
north  as  the  stormy  latitude  of  the  Hebrides,  there  must 
have  been  a  high  and  general  fervour  kindling  each  heart; 
and  none  more  so  than  the  large  heart  that  beat  in  the 


*  Wordsworth’s  Ode  on  the  Installation  of  Prince  Albert  as  Chan 
cellar  of  tto  University  of  Cambridge,  in  1847. 


LITERATURE  OF  XVI.  CENTURY. 


173 


breast  of  William  Shakspeare.  An  intense  nationality, 
and  a  liappy  loyalty  to  the  government,  as  represented  in 
the  sovereign — fervid  as  were  these  emotions  in  the  days 
of  Queen  Elizabeth — could  not  hut  affect  vividly  the 
national  literature,  especially  the  dramatic  literature, 
placed  as  it  was  in  close  contact  with  the  people.  This 
influence  is  manifest  in  Spenser,  in  Shakspeare,  in  Ben 
Jonson,  and  all  the  great  authors  of  the  time;  and  doubt¬ 
less  it  was  one  of  the  causes  that  helped  them  to  their 
greatness. 

The  English  language,  too,  was  now  better  fitted  for 
all  the  uses  of  literature,  more  adequate  to  the  needs  of 
philosophic  thought,  and  of  deep  and  varied  feeling — at 
once  stronger,  more  flexible,  and  more  copious.  It  was 
now  flowing  one  mighty  flood,  no  longer  showing  the 
separate  colours  of  the  two  streams  which  filled  its 
channel — colours  caught  from  the  different  soils,  the 
Saxou  and  the  Norman,  in  which  they  had  their  springs. 
The  hidden  harmonies  of  the  language  were  disclosed, 
and  its  power  of  more  varied  music  shown.  The  people’s 
speech  had  grown  to  its  full  stature.*  The  language 
became  affluent  in  expressions  incorporated  with  it  from 
the  literature  of  antiquity,  for  classical  learning  in  its 


*  Dr.  Johnson,  in  the  preface  to  his  Dictionary,  a  work  demanding 
his  gigantic  powers  and  congenial  to  them,  has  admirably  remarked, 
that  “From  the  authors  which  arose  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  a  speech 
might  be  formed  adequate  to  all  the  purposes  of  use  and  elegance.  If 
the  language  of  theology  were  extracted  from  Hooker  and  the  trans¬ 
lation  of  the  Bible;  the  terms  of  natural  knowledge  from  Bacon;  the 
phrases  of  policy,  war,  and  navigation  from  Raleigh;  the  dialect  o' 
poetry  and  fiction  from  Spenser  and  Sydney;  and  the  diction  of  com¬ 
mon  life  from  Shakspeare, — few  ideas  would  be  lost  to  mankind,  for 
want  of  English  words  in  which  they  might  be  expressed.”  II.  R. 

15* 


174 


LECTURE  FIFTH. 


best  forms  was  made,  as  it  were,  part  of  the  mind  of 
modern  Europe;  and  in  England,  under  Elizabeth,  the 
great  universities,  which  during  the  immediately  previous 
reigns  had  suffered  from  violence  that  had  pierced  even 
those  tranquil  abodes,  were  gathering  anew  their  scattered 
forces.  The  attainments  of  the  Queen  herself,  gained  by 
the  superior  education  which  Henry  VIII.  had  the  sagacity 
to  give  his  daughters,  (it  is  one  of  the  few  good  things  to 
be  said  of  him,)  created  another  sympathy  between  the 
sovereign  and  her  subjects.  Beside  the  influence  of 
ancient  literature,  necessarily  limited  to  the  learned,  there 
was  the  larger  and  more  open  influence  of  the  nation’s 
own  older  literature — Chaucer’s  poetry  dear  to  the  peo¬ 
ple,  and  honoured  by  his  grateful  successors — for  it  was 
to  Chaucer,  let  it  be  remembered,  that  Spenser  applies  the 
well-known  phrase,  the  “  well  of  English  undefiled.” 
There  was  the  early  romance,  and  that  strange  expres¬ 
sion  of  the  mediaeval  mind,  the  “Mysteries”  and  “Mo¬ 
ralities,”  “  Miracle  Plays” — that  allegorical  drama,  in 
which  abstractions  were  personified,  and  the  actors  were 
such  things  as  “Pride,”  “Gluttony,”  “ Swift-to-Sin,” 
“  Charity,”  and,  what  might  perhaps  be  the  more  appro¬ 
priate  personifications  for  later  times,  “  Learning-without- 
money,”  and  “  Money-without-learning,”  and  “  All-for- 
money.”  In  the  great  controversy  of  the  Reformation, 
these  devices  for  edification  were  freely  employed  by  both 
divisions  of  the  church  to  promote  their  respective 
opinions.  An  act  of  parliament  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
VIII.,  for  the  promotion  of  true  religion,  forbade  all  in¬ 
terludes  contradictory  to  established  doctrines.  In  the 
preparatory  processes  of  the  Elizabethan  literature,  there 
was  also  the  early  minstrelsy  in  all  its  forms,  tales  told 


LITERATURE  OF  XVI.  CENTURY. 


175 


by  the  fireside  in  the  long  English  winter  evenings,  and 
songs  sung,  as  Shakspeare  speaks  of,  by  women  as  they 
sat  spinning  and  knitting  in  the  sun.  How  deep  was  the 
influence  of  the  popular  minstrelsy,  is  apparent  from  that 
well-known  sentence  of  Sir  Philip  Sydney  :  “I  never  heard 
the  old  song  of  Percie  and  Douglas,  that  I  found  not  my 
heart  moved  more  than  with  a  trumpet;  and  yet  it  is 
sung  but  by  some  bliude  crowder,  with  no  rougher  voice 
than  rude  style;  which  being  so  evil  apparelled  in  the 
dust  and  cobweb  of  that  uncivil  age,  what  would  it  work, 
trimmed  in  the  gorgeous  eloquence  of  Pindar?”*  Syd¬ 
ney’s  feeling  becomes  still  more  intelligible  when  we  re¬ 
call  how  the  same  strain  clung  to  the  heart  of  Walter 
Scott,  (it  was  his  favourite  of  the  old  ballads :)  when 
visiting  the  ruined  castle  of  Douglas,  feeling  the  sure 
approaches  of  death,  he  repeated  to  Lockhart  the  old 
poem,  the  pathos  of  the  last  stanza  having  an  applica¬ 
tion  not  to  be  mistaken,  and  leaving  him  in  tears : 

“My  wound  is  deep — I  fain  would  sleep — 

Take  thou  the  vanguard  of  the  three, 

And  hide  me  beneath  the  bracken  bush 
That  grows  on  yonder  lilylee. 

This  deed  was  done  at  the  Otterbourne, 

About  the  dawning  of  the  day  ; 

Earl  Douglas  was  buried  at  the  bracken  bush, 

And  the  Percy  led  captive  away.”f 

Thus,  as  I  have  sought  to  show,  there  were  propitious 
influences,  from  the  past  and  of  the  present,  which  gave 
to  our  language  the  most  illustrious  period  of  its  litera¬ 
ture — that  which  is  usually  called  the  “  Elizabethan,” 


*  Defence  of  Poesy,  p.  34.  Oxford  ed.  1S29. 
f  Lockhart’s  Scott,  vol.  x.  p.  86. 


176 


LECTUKE  FIFTH. 


passing  over  into  the  seventeenth  century.  First  in  it, 
was  the  English  version  of  the  Bible ;  for,  although  the 
present  standard  is  that  of  King  James,  published  in 
1611,  it  belongs  more  properly  in  the  history  of  English 
literature  to  an  earlier  period,  modelled,  as  the  new  trans¬ 
lation  was,  after  Archbishop  Parker’s,  commonly  called 
“  The  Bishop’s  Bible,”  of  the  year  1568.  The  first  of 
the  instructions  given  to  the  translators  in  King  James’s 
time,  was,  “The  ordinary  Bible  read  in  the  churches, 
commonly  called  the  Bishop’s  Bible,  to  be  followed,  and 
as  little  altered  as  the  original  will  permit.”  We  may, 
therefore,  associate  the  language  of  our  Bibles  more  truly 
with  the  age  of  Elizabeth  than  with  that  of  the  first  of 
the  Stuarts.  To  the  same  period  belongs  the  first  of  the 
great  English  prose-writers,  .Richard  Hooker,  the  earliest 
of  that  unbroken  series  of  authors,  during  the  last  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years,  who  have  shown  the  resources  of 
our  English  prose )  Bacon,  Taylor,  Milton,  and  Barrow,  Dry- 
den,  Bolingbroke,  Swift,  and  Burke,  Johnson,  Goldsmith, 
and  Cowper,  and,  in  our  own  times,  Scott  and  Southey, 
Sydney  Smith  and  Landor.  Mr.  Hallam,  in  his  Consti¬ 
tutional  History,  turns  aside  from  his  subject  to  express 
his  deep  sense  of  the  claims  which  Hooker,  as  the  author 
of  the  “  Ecclesiastical  Polity,”  has  “  to  be  counted  among 
the  great  luminaries  of  English  literature.  He  not  only 
opened  the  mind,  but  explored  the  depths  of  our  native 
eloquence.  So  stately  and  graceful  is  the  march  of  his 
periods,  so  various  the  fall  of  his  musical  cadences  upon  the 
ear,  so  rich  in  images,  so  condensed  in  sentences,  so  grave 
and  noble  his  diction,  so  little  is  there  of  vulgarity  in 
his  racy  idiom,  of  pedantry  in  his  learned  phrase,  that  1 
know  not  whether  any  later  writer  has  more  admirably 


j  j  /  (jfi- 


J5 


LITERATURE  OF  XVI.  CENTURY. 


177 


displayed  the  capacities  of  our  language,  or  produced  pas¬ 
sages  more  worthy  of  comparison  with  the  splendid  monu¬ 
ments  of  antiquity.”  * 

The  chief  glory,  however,  of  the  Elizabethan  age,  is 
its  poetry,  at  once  the  most  abundant  and  the  highest  in 
the  annals  of  English  literature.  No  fewer  than  two 
hundred  poets  are  referred  to  the  period  by  a  cata¬ 
logue  which,  by  good  authority,  is  thought  not  to  exceed 
the  true  number.  But  it  is  not  number  alone.  There  are 
the  names  of  Edmund  Spenser  and  of  William  Shaks- 
peare. 

When  Spenser,  in  1590,  gave  to  the  world  the  first 
books  of  “  The  Faery  Queen,”  it  was  done  in  a  manner 
worthy  of  the  age  and  of  his  great  inspiration.  It  was 
dedicated  to  his  Queen — “  The  most  high,  mighty,  and 
magnificent  empress,  renowned  for  piety,  virtue,  and  all 
gracious  government,  Elizabeth,  by  the  grace  of  Gcd, 
Queen  of  England,  France,  and  Ireland,  and  Virginia.” 
Yes,  there  stands  the  name  of  that  honoured  State;  and, 
while  there  is  many  a  reason  for  the  lofty  spirit  of  her 
sons,  the  pulse  of  their  pride  may  beat  higher  at  the  sight 
of  the  record  of  “  the  ancient  dominion”  on  the  first  page 
of  the  Faery  Queen.  The  poet  placed  it  there  as  a  tri¬ 
bute  to  her  from  whom  the  name  was  taken,  and  also  to 
the  gallant  enterprise  of  Raleigh  and  his  adventurous 
followers. 

The  poem  is  ushered  in  not  only  by  the  dedication  to  the 
sovereign,  but  by  a  series  of  introductory  verses  addressed 
to  the  most  illustrious  statesmen  and  soldiers  of  the  court, 
Hatton,  and  Burleigh,  and  Essex,  Howard,  Walsingham, 


*  Hallam's  Constitutional  History  of  England,  vol.  i.  p.  291. 


178 


LECTURE  FIFTII. 


aud  Raleigh — to  Buckhurst,  (whose  own  muse  was  slumber¬ 
ing  now;)  and  not  only  to  these,  the  living  men  of  power  and 
place,  but,  with  a  truth  of  affection  worthy  of  the  poet’s 
gentle  spirit,  to  the  mourning  sister  of  his  lost  friend,  Sir 
Philip  Sydney,  and  closing  with  an  address,  full  of  the 
chivalry  of  the  times,  “  to  all  the  gratious  and  beautiful 
ladies  iu  the  court.” 

Having  occasion  now  to  hasten  to  a  few  other  subjects, 
I  propose  to  reserve  what  I  wish  to  say  of  the  Faery  Queen, 
until  the  next  lecture,  when  I  desire  to  speak  of  Spenser 
as  a  sacred  poet,  in  connection  with  some  counsel  on  the 
subject  of  Sunday  reading.  At  present,  let  me  recommend 
that  remarkable  series  of  papers  from  the  pen  of  Professoi 
John  Wilson — the  Christopher  North  of  Blackwood’i 
Magazine — papers  of  the  highest  value  as  pieces  of  trut 
imaginative  criticism,  written  with  such  a  glowing  admi¬ 
ration  of  Spenser’s  genius,  that  I  know  of  no  better  meanw 
than  the  perusal  of  them  for  extending  the  study  of  this 
great  allegory.  They  are  to  be  found  in  Blackwood’s 
Magazine  for  1833. 

The  large  luminary  of  Spenser’s  imagination  had  scarce 
mounted  high  enough  above  the  horizon  to  kindle  all  it 
touched,  when  there  arose  the  still  more  glorious  shape  of 
Shakspeare’s  genius,  radiant  like  Milton’s  seraph — “another 
morn  risen  on  mid-noon.”  This  was  the  wonderful  dra¬ 
matic  era  in  English  letters.  Within  about  fifty  years, 
beginning  in  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  there 
was  a  concourse  of  dramatic  authors,  the  like  of  which  is 
seen  nowhere  else  in  literary  history.  The  central  figure 
is  Shakspeare,  towering  above  them  all ;  but  there  ,/ere 
there,  Ben  Jonson,  and  Beaumont,  and  Fletcher,  a^d 
Ford,  and  a  multitude  of  whom  a  poet  has  said, 


LITERATURE  OF  XVI.  CENTURY. 


179 


‘•They  stood  around 

The  throne  of  Shakspeare,  sturdy,  but  unclean.”* 

Their  productions  were  numerous :  one  of  them,  Heywood, 
speaks  of  having  had  a  share  in  the  authorship  of  two 
hundred  and  twenty  plays,  of  which  only  twenty-five  have 
been  preserved.  They  often  worked,  too,  in  fellowship, 
sucli  as  linked  the  names  of  Francis  Beaumont  and  John 
Fletcher  forever  together — a  beautiful  literary  companion¬ 
ship,  the  secret  of  which  seems  to  be  lost  in  the  more  cal¬ 
culating  selfishness  of  later  times. 

It  is  scarce  possible,  it  seems  to  me,  to  mistake  that 
this  abundant  development  of  dramatic  poetry  was  cha¬ 
racteristic  of  times  distinguished  by  the  admirable  union 
of  action  and  contemplation  in  many  of  the  illustrious 
men  who  flourished  then;  for  instance,  Sir  Philip  Sydney 
devoting  himself  to  the  effort  of  raising  English  poetry  to 
its  true  estate,  kindling  his  heart  with  the  old  ballads,  or 
drawing  the  gentle  Spenser  forth  from  the  hermitage  ot 
his  modesty;  at  the  same  time  sharing  in  affairs  of  state, 
in  knights’  deeds  of  arms,  and  on  the  field  of  battle  meet¬ 
ing  an  early  death,  memorable  with  its  last  deed  of  charity, 
when,  putting  away  the  cup  of  water  from  his  own  lips  burn 
ing  with  the  thirst  of  a  bleeding  death,  he  gave  it  to  a 
wounded  soldier  with  the  words,  “  Thy  necessity  is  yet 
greater  than  mine  or  Raleigh  preserving  his  love  of 
letters  throughout  his. whole  varied  career,  at  court,  in 
camp,  or  tempest-tost  in  his  adventures  on  the  ocean.  It 
seems  to  me  that  an  age  thus  characterized  by  the  combi¬ 
nation  of  thought  and  deed  in  its  representative  men,  had 
its  most  congenial  literature  iu  the  drama — that  form  of 


*  Walter  Savage  I.andor. 


kSO 


LECTURE  FIFTH. 


poetry  wbuh  Lord  Bacon  lias  described  as  “history  made 
visible.’’ 

I  have  said  little  of  the  greatest  name  that  adorns  the 
literature  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth  and  the  few  succeeding 
years,  and  have  now  left  myself  no  space  to  speak  of  what 
demands  such  ample  room  as  comment  on  Shakspeare. 
It  is  a  field  that  has  been  of  late  very  much  travelled 
over.  Its  interest,  if  truly  sought,  can  never  be  exhausted. 
There  is  a  mere  chance  that  I  may  be  pointing  your  atten¬ 
tion  to  what  has  not  attracted  it  before,  when  I  ask 
whether  you  have  ever  noticed  the  power  of  Shakspeare 
peculiarly  as  a  writer  of  English  prose.  Of  its  kind,  it  is 
as  admirable  as  his  poetic  language.  It  is  interspersed 
through  his  plays,  never  introduced  probably  without  some 
exquisite  art  in  the  transition  from  verse  to  prose,  from 
metrical  to  unmetrieal  diction.  Let  us  for  a  few  minutes 
look  at  this  subject,  and  I  will  place  side  by  side  two 
Dassages,  counterpart  in  some  measure  in  subject ;  first, 
of  verse,  that  familiar  passage  on  the  music  of  the  spheres, 
which  Hallam’s  calm  judgment  pronounced  “perhaps  the 
most  sublime  in  Shakspeare 


*  Ilallain’s  Literature  of  Europe,  chap.  iii.  $  11,  vol.  iii.  p.  147.  It 
is  difficult  to  refrain  from  quoting,  hackneyed  as  they  are,  the  lines 
which  immediately  precede  those  in  the  text,  the  playful  dialogue  of 
the  Venetian  lovers,  ending  with  the  solemn,  reverential  outburst  of 
Lorenzo,  as,  turning  from  the  bright,  mortal  eyes  of  his  mistress,  he 
looks  up  to  the  stars  of  heaven.  There  are  some  lines  of  Shelly,  on 
Night,  which  do  not  suffer  in  comparison  with  any  thing  since  the 
Merchant  of  Venice : 

“  How  beautiful  this  Night !  the  balmiest  sigh 
Which  vernal  zephyrs  breathe  in  morning’s  ear, 

Were  discord  to  the  speaking  quietude 


11TERATURE  OF  XVI.  CENTURY. 


in 


“  Look,  how  the  floor  of  heaven 
Is  thick  inlaid  with  patines  of  bright  gold  ! 

There’s  not  the  smallest  orb  which  thou  behold’st 
But  in  his  motion  like  an  angel  sings, 

Still  quiring  to  the  young-eyed  cherubim. 

Such  harmony  is  in  immortal  souls  : 

But  whilst  this  muddy  vesture  of  decay 
Doth  grossly  close  it  in,  we  cannot  hear  it.” 

Whose  prose  but  Shakspeare’s  could  stand  by  the  side 
of  such  verse  ?  I  turn  to  an  equally  familiar  passage  in 
Hamlet:  “I  have  of  late  (but  wherefore,  I  know  not) 
lost  all  my  mirth,  forgone  all  custom  of  exercise  :  and, 
indeed,  it  goes  so  heavily  with  my  disposition,  that  this 
goodly  frame,  the  earth,  seems  to  me  a  sterile  promontory  : 
this  most  excellent  canopy,  the  air,  look  you,  this  brave 
o’erhanging  firmament,  this  majestical  roof,  fretted  with 
golden  fire,  why,  it  appears  no  other  thing  to  me  than  a 
foul  and  pestilent  congregation  of  vapours.  What  a  piece 
of  work  is  a  man  !  IIow  noble  in  reason  !  How  infinite 


That  wraps  this  moveless  scene.  Heaven's  ebon  arch, 
Studded  with  stars  unutterably  bright, 

Through  which  the  moon’s  unclouded  splendour  rolls, 
Seems  like  a  canopy  which  love  has  spread 
To  curtain  her  sleeping  world.  Yon  gentle  hills, 
Robed  in  a  garment  of  untrodden  snow: 

Yon  darksome  rocks,  whence  icicles  depend, 

So  stainless  that  their  white  and  glittering  spires 
Tinge  not  the  moon’s  pale  beam ;  yon  castled  steep. 
Whose  banner  hangeth  o’er  the  time-worn  tower 
So  idly,  that  wrapt  fancy  deemeth  it 
A  metaphor  of  Peace, — all  form  a  scene 
Where  musing  solitude  might  love  to  lift 
Her  soul  above  this  sphere  of  earthlinoss: 

Where  silonce  undisturbed  might  walk  alone, 

So  cold,  so  bright,  so  still.”  W.  B.  R. 

M  16 


102 


LECTURE  FIFTH. 


in  faculties  !  in  form  and  moving,  how  express  and  admi¬ 
rable  !  in  action,  how  like  an  angel !  in  apprehension, 
how  like  a  god  !  the  beauty  of  the  world  !  the  paragon  of 
animals  !  And  yet,  to  me,  what  is  this  quintessence  of 
dust  ?  Man  delights  not  me,  nor  woman  neither,  though, 
by  your  smiling,  you  seem  to  say  so.” 

Now  let  me  exemplify  a  quick  transition  from  prose  to 
verse  :  when  Coriolanus  is  soliciting  the  plebeian  votes, 
citizens  tell  him  he  has  not  loved  the  common  people  :  the 
irony  of  his  answer  is  prose  : — “  You  should  account  me 
the  more  virtuous,  that  I  have  not  been  common  in  my 
love.  I  will,  sir,  flatter  my  sworn  brother,  the  people,  to 
earn  a  dearer  estimation  of  them  ;  ’tis  a  condition  they 
account  gentle;  and  since  the  wisdom  of  their  choice  is 
rather  to  have  my  hat  than  my  heart,  I  will  practise  the 
insinuating  nod,  and  be  off  to  them  most  counterfeitly ;  that 
is,  sir,  I  will  counterfeit  the  bewitchment  of  some  popular 
man,  and  give  it  bountifully  to  the  desirers.  Therefore 
beseech  you,  I  may  be  consul.”  The  bitterness  of  tbs 
soliloquy  that  follows  is  verse  : 

“Better  it  is  to  die,  better  to  starve, 

Than  crave  the  hire  which  first  we  do  deserve. 

Why  in  this  wolvish  gown  should  I  stand  here, 

To  beg  of  Hob  and  Dick,  that  do  appear, 

Their  needless  vouches?  Custom  calls  me  to’t: 

What  custom  wills,  in  all  things  should  we  do’t, 

The  dust  on  antique  time  would  lie  unswep’t. 

And  mountainous  error  be  too  highly  heap’d 
For  truth  to  overpeer.  Rather  than  fool  it  so, 

Let  the  high  office  and  the  honour  go 
To  one  that  would  do  thus.” 

The  poet’s  power  over  language  as  an  instrument  is 
curiously  apparent  in  this,  that  when  he  so  purposes,  he 
takes  all  heart  out  of  the  words,  and  makes  them  sound 


183 


/ 


LITERATURE  OF  XVI.  CENTURY. 

as  if  they  came  merely  from  the  lips.  Observe  how  this 
occurs  in  the  speeches  of  Goneril  and  Regan  as  contrasted 
with  Cordelia’s  words:  or  the  contrast  between  the  utter 
hollowness  of  the  king’s  request  to  Hamlet,  and  the  reality 
that  there  is  in  his  mother’s  language.  The  king’s  is 
thus : 

“  For  your  intent 

In  going  back  to  school  in  Wittenberg: 

It  is  most  retrograde  to  our  desire; 

And  we  beseech  you,  bend  you  to  remain 
Here,  in  the  cheer  and  comfort  of  our  age, 

Our  chiefest  courtier,  cousin,  and  our  son.” 

The  queen  speaks  to  her  son : 

“  Let  not  thy  mother  lose  her  prayers,  Hamlet, 

I  pray  thee,  stay  with  us,  go  not  to  Wittenberg.” 

I  propose  in  my  next  lecture  to  pass  to  the  literature 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  to  connect  with  it  some 
th  mghts  on  the  subject  of  Sunday  reading. 


LECTURE  VI. 


^iterators  of  tljc  §>tf>tnieenf|j  dtcntnrg,  faith  indbmfal 
^suggestions  on  Himbag  |Uabmg.* 

Hooker’s  Ecclesiastical  Polity — Progress  of  English  literature — Sir 
Walter  Raleigh’s  History  of  the  World — Bacon’s  Essays — Mil- 
ton — Comus — Hymn  on  the  Nativity — Suggestions  as  to  Sunday 
reading — Sacred  books — Forms  of  Christian  faith — Evidences  of 
religion — Butler’s  Analogy — Charles  Lamb’s  Remarks  on  Stack- 
house — History  of  the  Bible — Jeremy  Taylor — Holy  Living  and 
Dying — Life  of  Christ — Pulpit-oratory — Southey’s  Book  of  the 
Church — Thomas  Fuller— Wordsworth’s  Ecclesiastical  Sonnets — 
IzaakWalton’s  Lives — Pilgrim’s  Progress — The  Old  Man’s  Home— 
George  Herbert — Henry  Vaughan — Milton  resumed — Paradise  Lost 
— Criticism  on  it  as  a  purely  sacred  poem — Shakspeare’s  mode  of 
treating  sacred  subjects — Spenser — The  Faery  Queen — John  Wes¬ 
ley — Keblo’s  Christian  Year — George  Wither — Aubrey  De  Vere — 
Trench’s  sonnet. 

In  following  the  progress  of  English  literature,  the 
difficulty  of  considering  it  according  to  what  may  be  re¬ 
garded  as  the  successive  eras  is  greatly  increased  the  far¬ 
ther  we  advance.  The  literature  becomes  more  abundant 
in  both  departments,  prose  as  well  as  verse,  and  the  in¬ 
fluences  that  affect  it,  and  are  affected  by  it,  are  found  to 
be  more  various  and  complicated.  English  prose-writing 
was  hardly  entitled  to  be  looked  on  as  literature  until 
nearly  two  hundred  years  after  English  peetry  had  dis¬ 
closed  many  of  its  finest  resources.  It  was  not  till  about 
the  year  1600  that  Hooker,  in  the  “  Ecclesiastical  Polity,” 


184 


*  February  7,  1850. 


LITERATURE  OF  X  VI  I.  C  E  NT  U  R  Y. 


ISA 


accomplished  for  English  prose  what  Chaucer  had  done 
for  English  poetry  before  the  year  1400.  Accustomed,  as 
we  now  are,  to  the  combination  of  prose  and  poetry  us 
making  up  a  literature — language  unmetricul  filling,  too, 
a  larger  space  than  the  metrical — we  are  apt  to  forget  how 
long  a  period  there  was  during  which  English  literature 
may  truly  be  said  to  have  been  without  its  prose.  In  the 
early  literature,  therefore,  Chaucer  may  be  thought  of  as 
the  solitary  rather  than  the  central  figure;  and  thus  of 
such  a  period  a  general  view  may  be  taken,  which,  at  the 
same  time,  may  show  the  individual  genius  that  belonged 
to  it.  As  we  move  forward,  however,  we  find  a  more  nu¬ 
merous  company  of  poets,  each  having  claim  to  attention, 
and,  along  with  them,  an  increasing  concourse  of  the 
prose-writers.  You  can  readily  perceive  how  it  becomes 
more  and  more  difficult  to  make  any  such  grouping  of  the 
many  actors  in  our  literature,  at  the  several  periods,  as  may 
set  them  before  you  a  well-arranged  company  rather  than 
a  confused  throng;  to  discover  which  was  the  great  mind 
of  the  age,  and  yet  not  lose  sight  of  others  that  circled 
round  it.  We  trace  the  progress  of  the  nation’s  litera¬ 
ture  more  laboriously,  because  more  and  varied  elements 
entered  into  it,  and  because  more  minds  were  contributing 
to  it.  It  becomes  more  necessary,  in  a  brief  and  outline 
course  of  lectures  like  this,  to  allude,  in  a  very  cursory 
manner,  to  authors  and  their  productions,  well  deserving 
extended  consideration  under  more  favourable  circum¬ 
stances. 

As  I  have  advanced  toward  that  period  of  our  litera¬ 
ture  in  which  names  illustrious,  both  in  prose  and  in 
poetry,  come  crowding  to  our  thoughts,  I  feel  the  necessity 
of  asking  you  to  bear  in  mind  that  this  course  of  lectures 
16* 


186 


LECTURE  SIXTH. 


was  designed  to  be  merely  of  a  suggestive  character,  to 
present  a  general  view  of  the  progress  of  English  litera¬ 
ture,  and  its  condition  at  successive  periods,  rather  than  a 
detailed  examination  of  particular  authors  or  books. 

It  is  possible  to  arrange  in  our  minds  the  literature  of 
our  language  into  a  series  of  successive  eras,  and  this  may 
be  done  with  somewhat  more  precision  than  would  at 
first  be  anticipated;  for  it  is  not  a  mere  arbitrary,  chrono¬ 
logical  distribution,  corresponding  with  centuries  or  reigns, 
but  an  arrangement  according  to  a  certain  set  of  influences 
affecting  the  English  mind  and  character  during  a  given 
length  of  time,  more  or  less  definite,  to  be  succeeded  by 
a  new  set  of  influences,  producing  a  new  phase  of  the 
nation’s  literature.  Such  a  general  view  of  English  lite¬ 
rature  is  important,  not  only  as  saving  one  from  a  great 
^  deal  of  confusion  of  thought  on  the  subject,  but  also  as 
enabling  us  to  see  the  great  authors  of  different  times, 
each  in  his  appropriate  grouping,  and  to  carry  out  special 
courses  of  reading.  The  succession  of  our  literary  eras, 
with  a  little  reflection  and  effort  of  memory,  may  be  so 
familiarized  as  not  to  be  forgotten.  The  earliest  era — the 
age  of  Chaucer,  as  it  may  aptly  be  styled — the  last  half 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  was  characterized  by  the  va¬ 
rious  influences  which  marked  the  mediaeval  civilization  ; 
the  closing  century  of  which  civilization,  from  1400  to 
1500,  was,  in  consequence  chiefly  of  internal  commotion 
in  England,  a  hundred  years’  sleep  of  the  English  mind, 
so  far  as  literature  was  concerned.  The  first  half  of  the 
sixteenth  century  has  no  more  than  a  comparative  inte¬ 
rest,  as  a  period  in  which  the  English  mind  was  making 
its  transition  from  mediaeval  to  modern  modes  of  thought 
and  feeling,  affected,  too,  in  some  degree,  by  the  change 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  CENTURY. 


187 


of  the  nation’s  ecclesiastical  position.  The  latter  part  of 
the  sixteenth  century  and  the  first  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century — in  other  words,  the  reigns  of  Queen  Elizabeth 
and  of  James  the  First — form  properly  one  era,  al¬ 
though  it  is  usually  styled  the  Elizabethan  era,  in  conse¬ 
quence,  perhaps,  of  the  greater  glory  of  that  reign  in 
other  matters  than  letters.  The  latter  part  of  the  seven¬ 
teenth  century,  after  the  Restoration,  is  the  beginning  of 
an  era  extending  into  the  eighteenth  century,  with  which, 
as  a  truer  connection,  I  propose  to  consider  it  in  the  next 
lecture,  directing  my  attention  now  to  the  early  and 
middle  portion  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

The  prose  literature  of  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century  received  its  most  important  addition  in  what  may 
be  said  to  be  the  second  (in  time)  of  the  great  English 
prose-works — Sir  Walter  Raleigh’s  History  of  the  World, 
the  work  with  which  he  beguiled  the  years  of  his  imprison¬ 
ment;  his  mind,  within  the  prison-walls,  travelling  out  into 
the  remote  regions  of  the  ancient  world’s  story,  as  actively 
as  his  body,  in  its  years  of  freedom,  had  mingled  with  his 
fellow-men,  and  roamed  over  the  distant  spaces  of  the  sea. 

To  the  same  period  of  our  prose  literature  belong  the 
authorship  and  the  philosophy  of  another  man  famous 
(and  I  had  almost  said  infamous,  too)  in  public  life — 
Francis  Bacon,  Baron  Verulam,  Viscount  St.  Alban,  and 
(would  it  had  not  been  so)  Lord  High  Chancellor  of  Eng¬ 
land.  His  philosophical  works  belong  not  so  much  to 
literature  as  to  that  high  department  of  science  which  is 
meant  to  guide  human  inquiry,  and  mark  out  the  bound¬ 
aries  of  human  knowledge.  His  volume  which  does  belong 
to  literature  in  the  more  exact  sense  of  the  term,  is  the 
small  one  of  “  Essays  or  Counsels,  Civil  and  Moral;”  and 


188 


LECTURK  S1XXU. 


it  does  so,  for  a  reason,  which  he  has  himself  assigned,  in 
a  phrase  which  has  become  one  of  the  familiar  phrases  of 
the  language :  when,  after  the  cloud  had  fallen  on  his  cha¬ 
racter,  he  collected  these  miscellanies — he  said,  “I  do  now 
publish  my  Ussays,  which  of  all  my  other  works  have  been 
most  current;  for  that,  as  it  seems,  they  come  home  to 
men's  business  and  bosoms.”  That  the  Essays  do  so  ad¬ 
dress  themselves  thus  universally  and  intimately  to  man¬ 
kind,  is  apparent  from  a  mere  glance  at  the  list  of  titles; 
and  that  they  contain  a  perpetual  interest,  is  shown  from 
the  manner  in  which  their  condensed  wisdom  may  be 
evolved  for  new  applications — a  condensation  of  wisdom 
which  is  united  with  much  of  the  imaginative  processes  of 
thought,  and  is  therefore  doubly  valuable  as  one  of  the 
books  of  discipline  for  well  teaching.  “  Few  books,”  says 
Mr.  Hallam,  “are  more  quoted,  and  what  is  not  always 
the  case  with  such  books,  we  may  add,  that  few  are  more 
generally  read.  In  this  respect  they  lead  the  van  of  our 
prose  literature  :  for  no  gentleman  is  ashamed  of  owning 
that  he  has  not  read  the  Elizabethan  prose-writers;  but  it 
would  be  somewhat  derogatory  to  a  man  of  the  slightest 
claim  to  polite  letters  were  he  unacquainted  with  the 
Essays  of  Bacon.  It  is,  indeed,  little  worth  while  to  read 
this  or  any  other  book  for  reputatiou’s  sake;  but  very  few 
in  our  language  so  well  repay  the  pains  or  afford  more 
nourishment  to  the  thoughts.  They  might  be  judiciously 
introduced,  with  a  small  number  more,  into  a  sound  method 
of  education — one  that  should  make  wisdom,  rather  than 
mere  knowledge  its  object,  and  miylit  become  a  text-book 
of  examination  in  our  schools."* 


*  Literature  of  Europe,  vol.  iii.  chap.  iv.  §  xxxiv.  p.  342. 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  CENTURY. 


189 


In  that  which  is  essentially  the  literature  of  the  seven¬ 
teenth  century — prose  as  well  as  poetry — the  name  of  Mil- 
ton  is  prominent,  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  his  career 
approaching  respectively  the  opening  and  the  close  of  the 
century.  I  speak  of  this,  not  simply  as  a  matter  of  date, 
but  on  account  of  the  relation  of  that  career  to  the  age 
in  which  it  was  cast.  The  first  part  of  Milton’s  literary 
life  is  full  of  a  beautiful  reflection  of  the  age  that  had  gone 
before;  his  genius  is  then  glowing  with  tints  of  glory  cast 
upon  it  by  the  Elizabethan  poetry :  the  meridian  of  it  is  in 
close  correspondence  with  the  season  of  the  power  of  the 
Parliament  and  the  Protector,  when  Milton  stood  side  by 
side  with  Cromwell ;  and  the  latter  period  of  it  (which  I 
propose  to  speak  of  in  the  next  lecture)  was  that  of  sub¬ 
lime  and  solitary  contrast  with  the  times  of  Charles  the 
Second.  The  first  was  the  genial  season  of  youth,  studious, 
pure,  and  happy;  the  second  was  of  mature  manhood, 
strenuous  in  civil  strife,  and  the  dubious  dynasty  of  the 
Protectorate;  the  third  was  old  age,  darkened,  disappointed, 
but  indomitable. 

Of  Milton’s  early  poems,  the  most  beautiful  is  the  ex¬ 
quisite  Masque  of  Comus,  one  of  the  last  and  loveliest 
radiations  of  the  dramatic  spirit,  which  seemed  almost  to 
live  its  life  out  in  about  half  a  century  of  English  litera¬ 
ture,  beginning  in  the  times  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  and 
ending  in  those  of  Charles  the  First.  It  has  been  said  by 
more  than  one  judicious  critic  of  another  of  Milton’s 
early  poems,  “  Lycidas,”  that  the  enjoyment  of  it  is  a 
good  test  of  a  real  feeling  for  what  is  peculiarly  called 
poetry.  Of  Comus,  I  think,  it  might  be  said,  as  truly  as 
of  any  poem  in  the  language,  that  it  is  admirably  adapted 
to  inspire  a  real  feeling  for  poetry.  It  abounds  with  so 


190 


LECTURE  SIXTH. 


much  of  true  imagination,  such  attractiveness  of  fancy, 
such  grace  of  language  aud  of  metre,  and  withal  contains 
so  much  thought  and  wisdom  wherewith  to  win  a  mind 
unused  to  the  poetic  processes,  that  were  I  asked  what 
poem  might  best  be  chosen  to  awaken  the  imagination  to 
a  healthful  activity,  I  would  point  to  Milton’s  Comus,  as 
better  fitted  than  almost  any  other  for  the  purpose.  The 
poem,  both  in  the  conception  and  the  execution,  finely 
illustrates  the  power  of  the  imagination,  its  moral  al¬ 
chemy  in 

“Turning  the  common  dust 
Of  servile  opportunity  to  gold; 

Filling  the  soul  with  sentiments  august, 

The  beautiful,  the  brave,  the  holy,  and  the  just.”* 

For,  observe  on  what  a  homely  and  familiar  incident  the 
poet  has  built  up  this  beautiful  superstructure  of  fancy 
and  philosophy.  When  he  was  dwelling  at  his  father’s 
rural  home,  the  Earl  of  Bridgewater  was  keeping  his  court 
not  far  off,  at  Ludlow  Castle,  and  it  happened  that  his 
two  sons,  and  his  daughter,  the  Lady  Alice  Egerton,  were 
benighted  and  bewildered  in  Haywood  Forest;  where  the 
brothers,  seeking  a  homeward  path,  left  the  sister  alone 
awhile  in  a  tract  of  country  inhabited  by  a  boorish  pea¬ 
santry.  Such  was  all  the  story,  simpler  than  the  ballad 
of  the  Children  in  the  Wood;  and  yet  it  is  transfigured 
into  a  poem  of  a  thousand  lines — a  moral  drama  showing 
the  communion  of  natural  and  supernatural  life,  the  mys¬ 
terious  society  of  human  beings,  and  the  guardian  and 
tempting  spirits  hovering  round  their  paths :  it  teaches, 
with  a  poet’s  teaching,  how  the  spiritual  and  intellectual 


*  Wordsworth’s  Desultory  Stanzas.  Works,  p.  243. 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  CENTURY 


191 


nature  may  be  in  peril  from  the  charms  of  worldly  plea¬ 
sures,  and  how  the  philosophic  faith  and  the  heaven- 
assisted  virtue  are  seen  at  last  to  triumph.  The  guardian¬ 
ship  of  ministering  angels — their  encampment  round  the 
dwellings  of  the  just — is  finely  announced  in  the  opening 
lines,  spoken  by  the  attendant  spirit  alighting  in  the 
wood,  where  the  human  footsteps  are  astray : 

“  Before  the  starry  threshold  of  Jove’s  court 
My  mansion  is,  where  those  immortal  shapes 
Of  bright  aerial  spirits  live  insphered, 

In  regions  mild  of  calm  and  serene  air, 

Above  the  smoke  and  stir  of  this  dim  spot 

Which  men  call  Earth,  and  with  low-thoughted  care, 

Confin’d  and  pester’d  in  this  pinfold  here, 

Strive  to  keep  up  a  frail  and  feverish  being, 

Unmindful  of  the  crown  that  virtue  gives 
After  this  mortal  change  to  her  true  servants. 

Amongst  the  enthroned  gods  on  sainted  seats. 

Yet  some  there  be  that  by  due  steps  aspire 
To  lay  their  just  hands  on  that  golden  key 
That  opes  the  palace  of  eternity; 

To  such  my  errand  is;  and  but  for  such, 

I  would  not  soil  these  pure  ambrosial  weeds 
With  the  rank  vapours  of  this  sin-worn  mould.” 

The  genuine  power  of  invention  displayed  in  Comus  is 
not  disparaged;  nay,  the  beauty  of  it  is  heightened,  by 
the  lights  it  reflects  from  the  elder  poets,  of  whom  Milton 
was  deeply  studious,  for  he  knew  that  poetry  is  not  in¬ 
spiration  alone,  but  art  no  less.  There  are  passages 
which  seem  almost  like  echoes  of  the  sweet  modulations 
of  Shakspeare’s  sentences — combinations  of  words  which 
wc  should  say  were  Shakspeare’s,  could  we  forget  they  are 
Milton’s,  as  when  the  bewildered  lady  speaks  : 

“A  thousand  phantasies 
Begin  to  throng  into  my  memory, 


192 


LECTURE  SIXTH. 


Of  calling  shapes,  and  beck’ning  shadows  dire, 

And  airy  tongues,  that  syllable  men's  names 
On  sands,  and  shores,  and  desert  wildernesses. 

These  thoughts  may  startle  well,  but  not  astound, 

The  virtuous  mind,  that  ever  walks  attended 
By  a  strong-siding  champion,  Conscience. 

Oh  !  welcome  pure-eyed  Faith,  white-handed  Hope, 

Thou  hovering  angel,  girt  with  golden  wings, 

And  thou,  unblemished  form  of  Chastity  ; 

I  see  ye  visibly,  and  now  believe 

That  lie,  the  Supreme  Good,  to  whom  all  things  ill 

Are  but  as  slavish  officers  of  vengeance, 

Would  send  a  glist’ring  guardian,  if  need  were, 

To  keep  my  life  and  honour  unassailed.” 

Again,  there  are  passages  which  blend  with  a  music  of 
their  own  the  melody  of  both  Spenser  and  Shakespeare — 
the  music  of  their  words  and  of  their  thoughts — as  when 
the  brother  speaks : 

“I  do  not  think  my  sister  so  to  seek 
Or  so  unprincipled  in  Virtue’s  book, 

And  the  sweet  peace  that  goodness  bosoms  ever, 

As  that  the  single  want  of  light  and  noise 
(Not  being  in  danger,  as  I  trust  she  is  not) 

Could  stir  the  constant  mood  of  her  calm  thoughts, 

And  put  them  into  misbecoming  plight. 

Virtue  could  see  to  do  what  Virtue  would, 

By  her  own  radiant  light,  tho’  sun  and  moon 
Were  in  the  flat  sea  sunk.  And  Wisdom’s  self 
Oft  seeks  to  sweet,  retired  solitude, 

Where,  with  her  best  nurse,  Contemplation, 

She  plumes  her  feathers,  and  lets  grow  her  wings, 

That  in  tho  various  bustle  of  resort 

Were  all  too  ruffled,  and  sometimes  impaired. 

He  that  has  light  within  his  own  clear  breast 
May  sit  in  the  centre,  and  enjoy  bright  day.” 

When  the  lady  is  at  last  rescued  from  the  wicked 
magic  that  encircled  her,  the  good  attendant  spirit,  his 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  CENTURY. 


193 


guardianship  achieved,  speeds  away  like  Ariel,  set  free  to 
the  elements,  and  leaves  in  poetry  words  of  encourage¬ 
ment  and  promise  to  humanity  : 

“  Now  my  task  is  smoothly  done, 

I  can  fly  or  I  can  run 

Quickly  to  the  green  earth’s  end 

Where  the  bow’d  welkin  slow  doth  bend, 

And  from  thence  can  soar  as  soon 
To  the  corners  of  the  moon. 

Mortals,  that  would  follow  me, 

Love  Virtue;  she  alone  is  free: 

She  can  teach  ye  how  to  climb 
Higher  than  the  sphery  chime, 

Or  if  Virtue  feeble  were, 

Heaven  itself  would  stoop  to  her.” 

One  cannot  part  with  this  poem,  radiant  as  it  is  with 
what  is  bright  and  pure  and  lofty  in  poetry  and  philoso¬ 
phy,  without  thinking  how  little  that  high-born  woman, 
when  her  heart  was  throbbing  in  the  loneliness  of  Hay¬ 
wood  Forest — how  little  could  she  have  thought  that  a 
young  poet’s  words  were  to  win  for  her  more  enduring 
honour  than  wealth  or  heraldry  could  bestow. 

The  most  distinct  foreshadowing  of  Milton’s  great  epic 
poem,  and  of  his  own  independent  genius,  is  an  earlier 
poem — “  The  Hymn  on  the  Nativity” — which  gives  the 
poet  the  fame  of  having  composed  almost  in  his  youth  the 
earliest  of  the  great  English  odes,  the  like  of  which  had 
not,  I  believe,  been  heard,  since  Pindar,  two  thousand 
years  before,  had  struck  the  lyre  for  assembled  Greece. 
It  is  a  lyric  that  might  have  burst  froir.  that  religious 
bard  of  paganism,  could  he  have  had  prophetic  vision  of 
the  Advent.  It  is  a  poem  that  revealed  a  new  mastery 
of  English  versification,  disciplined  afterward  to  such 
,  17 


194 


LECTURE  SIXTH. 


power  in  the  blank  verse  of  Paradise  Lost.  Nothing  in 
the  way  of  metre  can  be  grander  than  some  of  the 
transitions  from  the  gentle  music  of  the  quiet  passages  to 
the  passionate  parts,  and  their  deep  reverberating  lines 
that  seem  to  go  echoing  on,  spiritually  sounding,  King 
after  they  are  heard  no  more.  The  universal  peace  ait 
the  time  of  the  Nativity  is  told  with  the  very  musi« 
peace : 

“No  war  or  battle’s  sound 
Was  heard  the  world  around; 

The  idle  spear  and  shield  were  high  up  hung : 

The  hooked  chariot  stood 
Unstain’d  with  hostile  blood; 

The  trumpet  spake  not  to  the  armed  throng ; 

And  kings  sat  still  with  awful  eye, 

As  if  they  surely  knew  their  sovereign  Lord  was  by. 

But  peaceful  was  the  night 
Wherein  the  Prince  of  Light 

His  reign  of  peace  upon  the  earth  began : 

The  winds,  with  wonder  whist, 

Smoothly  the  waters  kist, 

Whispering  new  joys  to  the  mild  ocean. 

Who  now  hath  quite  forgot  to  rave, 

While  birds  of  calm  sit  brooding  on  the  charmed  wave.” 

The  stanzas  that  tell  of  hopes  of  a  golden  age  again 
are  followed  by  that  solemn  one : 

“  But  wisest  Fate  says  no, 

This  must  not  yet  be  so; 

The  Babe  lies  yet  in  smiling  infancy, 

That  on  the  bitter  cross 
Must  redeem  our  loss, 

So  both  himself  and  us  to  glorify ;  .. 

Yet  first  to  those  ychained  in  sleep 

The  wakeful  trump  of  doom  must  thunder  through  the  deep." 

The  grandest  portion  of  this  poem  is  that  which  tells 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  CENTURY. 


195 


of  the  flight  of  the  false  deities  of  heathendom,  the 
panic  of  the  priests,  the  silencing  of  the  oracles,  and  the 
cessation  of  the  services  of  superstition,  when  the  star 
was  seen  over  the  infant  Saviour.  The  profusion  of 
mysterious  epithets  and  the  dim  imagery  seem  to  blend 
the  magic  of  the  dark  incantations  of  Shakspeare’s  witch¬ 
craft  with  the  splendours  of  Greek  mythology.  Pagan¬ 
ism  and  superstition — Europe’s,  Asia’s,  Africa’s — all, 
with  all  the  host  of  their  ministry,  are  vanishing  like 
witches  at  the  touch  of  music — a  babe’s  cry  heard  from 
the  manger  at  Bethlehem  throughout  the  spiritual  uni¬ 
verse  : 


•  The  oracles  are  dumb  ; 

No  voice  or  hideous  hum 

Runs  through  the  arched  roof  in  words  deceiving. 
Apollo  from  his  shrine 
Can  no  more  divine, 

With  hollow  shriek  the  steep  of  Delpkos  leaving. 

No  nightly  trance,  or  breathed  spell, 

Inspires  the  pale-eyed  priest  from  the  prophetic  cell. 

The  lonely  mountains  o’er. 

And  the  resounding  shore 

A  voice  of  weeping  heard  and  loud  lament; 

From  haunted  spring  and  dale, 

Edged  with  poplar  pale, 

The  parting  Genius  is  with  sighing  sent : 

With  flower-inwoven  tresses  torn, 

The  nymphs  in  twilight  shade  of  tangled  thickets  mourn. 

*  *  *  *  * 

And  sullen  Moloch,  fled, 

Hath  left  in  shadows  dread 

His  burning  idol  all  of  blackest  hue  • 

In  vain  with  cymbals’  ring 
They  call  the  grisly  king, 

In  dismal  dance  about  the  furnace  blue  : 


.96 


LECTURE  SIXTH. 


The  brutish  gods  of  Nile  as  last 

Isis  and  Orus  and  the  dog  Anubis  haste. 

Nor  is  Osiris  seen, 

In  Memphian  grove  or  green, 

Trampling  the  unshower’d  grass  with  lowings  loud; 

Nor  can  he  be  at  rest 
Within  his  sacred  chest; 

Nought  but  profoundest  hell  can  be  his  shroud: 

In  vain  with  timbrel’d  anthems  dark 

The  sable-stoled  sorcerers  bear  his  worshipt  ark. 

He  feels  from  Juda’s  land 
The  dreaded  Infant’s  hand.” 

*  -Ss  ■»  * 

Of  Milton’s  various  prose-writings,  and  of  his  epic 
poems,  it  would  hardly  be  possible  to  say  much  in  a  ge¬ 
neral  lecture  on  the  literature  of  the  century.  What  I 
have  to  say  respecting  the  Paradise  Lost,  I  propose  to 
put  in  this  course  in  another  connection. 


I  have  ventured  to  include,  in  the  subject  of  this 
evening’s  lecture,  some  suggestions  on  Sunday  reading ; 
and,  in  turning  aside  to  this  topic,  let  me  first  explain  why 
I  have  connected  it  with  this  portion  of  my  course.  The 
literature  of  the  seventeenth  century  includes  that  which 
is  most  generally  regarded  as  the  great  sacred  poem  of  our 
language — I  mean,  of  course,  the  Paradise  Lost ;  and, 
again,  it  is  the  most  illustrious  age  of  English  pulpit- 
oratory  and  of  theological  literature.  Let  me,  in  the 
next  place,  say,  that  I  trust  it  will  not  he  thought  pre¬ 
sumptuous  or  impertinent  in  me  to  introduce,  even  some¬ 
what  casually,  into  a  course  like  this,  the  subject  of  Sun¬ 
day  reading.  I  am  truly  solicitous,  on  the  one  side,  not 


SUNDAY  READING. 


197 


to  put  my  hand  unduly  upon  sacred  subjects,  which  are 
appropriate  to  another  profession  of  public  teachers;  and, 
on  the  other,  not  to  treat  those  sacred  subjects,  so  far  a? 
I  may  have  occasion  to  touch  them,  as  ordinary  topics  of 
literature  and  taste.  The  literature  which  is  associated 
with  holy  things  must  be  approached  with  the  reverential 
feeling  with  which  the  picture  of  a  sacred  subject  should 
be  looked  on,  remembering  that  there  is  due  to  it  some¬ 
thing  deeper  than  unloving,  technical  criticism  of  art. 

I  have  been  attracted  to  this  subject  by  the  conviction 
that  every  Sunday  has  its  unappropriated  portions  of 
time,  and  also  that  there  is  an  abundant  literature,  in 
English  words,  to  be  used  appropriately  to  the  day,  and 
beneficially.  The  week-day  opportunities  for  reading 
vary  very  much  with  the  business  and  duties  of  our 
lives ;  but  our  Sundays,  with  the  rest  they  bring,  put  us 
all  more  on  an  equality.  The  most  punctual  attendance 
on  public  worship  does  not  absorb  the  day ;  and,  the  day’s 
duties  discharged,  the  evening  can  have  no  better  employ¬ 
ment  than  that  which  is  in-door  and  domestic.  There 
are  the  contingencies,  too,  that  compel  the  spending  of 
the  whole  day  at  home  ;  and  I  believe  that  is  a  sore  trial 
to  those  who  have  no  resources  for  the  employment  of  it. 
This  is  a  great  pity,  considering  how  large  those  resources 
are.  I  do  not  propose  to  speak  of  the  study  of  the  Bible, 
because  I  am  not  willing  to  treat  that  as  a  literary  occu¬ 
pation.  It  stands  on  higher  ground,  and  ground  of  its 
own. 

With  regard  to  modes  of  Christian  faith  and  systems 
of  church-government,  it  surely  is  becoming  for  every 
one,  both  man  and  woman,  to  have  an  intelligent  know¬ 
ledge  of  their  belief  and  membership  It  is  right  to 
N 


LECTURE  SIXTH 


198 

hold,  with  confidence  and  charity  combined,  to  well-formed 
and  precise  principles,  in  all  that  we  profess  to  give 
our  spiritual  allegiance  to;  to  understand  our  own  position 
and  to  feel  the  strength  of  it,  instead  of  that  careless  igno¬ 
rance,  that  latitudinarian  indifference,  which  is  seen  and 
heard  so  much  of — a  mock  liberalism,  which  I  speak  of  as 
unreal,  because,  often  when  it  is  put  to  the  test,  it  is  found 
to  cover  either  a  hollow  scepticism  or  a  bitter  intolerance, 
instead  of  genuine  Christian  charity. 

In  the  discipline  of  habits  of  reading,  it  is  on  many  ac¬ 
counts  important  to  draw  a  line  of  distinction  between 
week-day  reading  and  Sunday  reading.  Independently  of 
the  propriety  of  making  the  reading  subservient  to  the  uses 
of  the  day,  such  appropriation  is  desirable  as  a  means  of 
securing  acquaintance  with  a  large  and  very  valuable  por¬ 
tion  of  English  literature — the  department  of  its  sacred 
literature  being  very  extensive  both  in  prose  and  poetry ; 
so  extensive,  indeed,  that  when  this  habit  is  well  formed 
and  cultivated,  it  will  be  found  that  the  Sunday  reading 
is  more  apt  to  encroach  on  the  week-day  reading  than  the 
reverse. 

The  choice  of  books  must  he  not  only  reverently  suited 
to  the  day,  but  also  large  in  their  influences.  It  should 
be  no  narrow  choice,  for  such  would  be  unworthy  of  the 
manifold  power  of  the  day.  It  may  associate  with  books 
which  are  formally  and  directly  connected  with  sacred 
subjects,  and  others  no  less  sacred  in  their  influences,  be¬ 
cause  the  sanctity  is  held  more  in  reserve,  acting,  i( 
may  be,  more  deeply,  because  less  avowedly. 

The  sacred  literature  of  our  language  may  be  described 
as  containing  books  on  the  evidences  of  religion,  sermons, 
devotional  books,  church  history,  biographies  of  saintly 


SUNDAY  READING. 


199 


men  and  women,  travels  in  the  Holy  Land,  sacred  allego¬ 
ries  and  other  prose  stories,  and  sacred  poetry.  The  un¬ 
appropriated  portions  of  the  Sundays  of  a  long  life  might 
find  in  the  English  books  on  such  subjects  varied  and  un¬ 
failing  delight  and  spiritual  health. 

Of  one  of  the  classes  of  books  named,  those  on  the  evi¬ 
dences,  it  appears  to  me  that  injudicious  use  is  not  unfre- 
quently  made.  If  a  man  is  an  unbeliever,  these  books 
may  be  good  for  him  ;  or  if  he  has  to  deal  with  unbelievers, 
they  may  be  of  service  to  him  :  but  to  a  believing  Chris¬ 
tian,  man  or  woman,  many  a  well-intentioned  work  of  this 
kind  may  be  not  only  worthless,  but  injurious.  A  great 
work,  such  as  Bishop  Butler’s,  may  indeed  be  invaluable 
both  as  a  discipline  of  thought  and  as  strengthening  the 
intellectual  conviction  of  the  truth  of  revelation ;  or  such 
works  as  the  Bridgewater  Treatises  may  help  to  deepen 
the  sense  of  the  power,  wisdom,  and  goodness  of  the 
Creator,  as  displayed  in  the  universe.  But  there  is  a 
multitude  of  books  which,  I  fear,  are  mischievous,  for 
they  tell  the  believing,  faithful  spirit  of  doubts  which  such 
a  spirit  never  would  have  dreamed  of — doubts  engendered 
in  the  hard  heart  of  unbelief,  the  miserable  sophistries 
which  skepticism  has  spun  out.  Why  should  the  happy 
heart  of  belief  even  look  at,  much  less  pore  over,  such 
things,  studying  the  refutation  of  fallacies  never  else 
heard  of?  What  need  of  the  antidote,  if  the  poison  would 
not  come  nigh  you  ?  Why  should  believing  Christian  people 
think  it  worth  while  to  waste  their  time  and  thoughts  upon 
such  things  ?  and  above  all,  why  the  fresh  and  docile  and 
believing  spirit  of  youth,  manly  or  womanly  youth — the  be¬ 
lieving  children  of  believing  parents — be  trained  in  the 
knowledge  of  what  Hume  denied,  and  how  Gibbon  scoffed, 


200 


LECTURE  SIXTH. 


and  the  ribald  deism  of  Paine,  for  the  sake  of  being 
taught  how  these  things  may  be  answered  ?  A  little 
argumentative  strength  of  belief  may  be  gained,  (per¬ 
haps,)  but  there  is  danger  in  the  process  that  the  power 
of  affectionate,  instinctive  belief — a  thousand-fold  more 
precious — may  be  at  the  same  time  wasting  and  worn 
away. 

Charles  Lamb’s  recollection  from  childhood  of  Stack- 
house’s  History  of  the  Bible  is  full  of  warning  on  this 
subject.  “I  remember,”  he  says,  “it  consisted  of  Old 
Testament  stories,  orderly  set  down,  with  the  objection 
appended  to  each  story,  and  the  solution  of  the  objection 
regularly  tacked  to  that.  The  objection  was  a  summary 
of  whatever  difficulties  had  been  opposed  to  the  credibility 
of  the  history  by  the  shrewdness  of  ancient  or  modern 
infidelity,  drawn  up  with  an  almost  complimentary  excess 
of  candour.  The  solution  was  brief,  modest,  and  satis¬ 
factory.  The  bane  and  antidote  were  both  before  you. 
To  doubts,  so  put,  and  so  quashed,  there  seemed  to  be  an 
end  forever.  The  dragon  lay  dead  for  the  foot  of  the 
veriest  babe  to  trample  on.  But — like  as  was  rather 
feared  than  realized  from  that  slain  monster  in  Spenser — 
from  the  womb  of  those  crushed  errors  young  dragonets 
would  creep,  exceeding  the  powers  of  so  tender  a  St. 
George  as  myself  to  vanquish.  The  habit  of  expecting 
objections  to  a  passage  set  me  upon  starting  more  ob¬ 
jections,  for  the  glory  of  finding  a  solution  of  my  own  for 
them.  I  became  staggered  and  perplexed,  a  skeptic  in 
long  coats.  The  pretty  Bible  stories  which  I  had  read, 
or  had  heard  read  in  church,  lost  their  purity  and  sin 
cerity  of  impression,  and  were  turned  into  so  many  his¬ 
toric  or  chronologic  theses  to  be  defended  against  whatever 


SUNDAY  READING. 


201 


impugners.  I  was  not  to  disbelieve  them,  but — the  next 
thing  to  that — I  was  to  be  quite  sure  that  some  one  or 
other  would  or  had  disbelieved  them.  Next  to  making  a 
child  an  infidel,  is  the  letting  him  know  that  there  are 
infidels  at  all.”* 

Such  an  influence  is  not  limited  to  childhood,  but 
affects  in  like  manner  the  spirit  of  belief  at  any  age;  and 
therefore  it  is  safer  and  wiser  to  seek  no  knowledge  of 
atheism,  or  deism,  or  skepticism,  even  in  the  refutation 
of  them. 

This  also  should  be  borne  in  mind,  that  the  evidences 
of  religion,  as  discussed  in  the  last  century,  when  they 
were  most  rife,  present  Christianity  in  a  defensive  apo¬ 
logetic  attitude,  which  is  unworthy  of  it.  The  literary 
leaders  of  the  times  were  the  infidels  Bolingbroke,  and 
Hume,  and  Gibbon,  and  others  earlier  and  later,  the 
British  infidelity  which  was  followed  by  French  infidelity. 
The  insolence  of  unbelief  had  risen  high,  and  the  tone  of 
the  faithful  was  depressed ;  a  style  of  defence  prevailed 
which  is  out  of  place  in  a  better  age,  where  no  infidel 
author  has  bold  prominence  in  literature.  That  subdued 
mode  of  warfare  with  skepticism  was  oddly  adverted  to 
at  the  time  by  George  the  Third,  (who,  whatever  his 
faults  were,  had  the  merit  of  being  the  first  moral  man  that 
had  sat  on  the  British  throne  for  more  than  a  century  rf) 
when  Bishop  Watson  published  his  “Apology  for  the 


*  Prose  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  150.  Essay  on  Witches  and  other  Night 
Fears. 

f  In  Lord  Mahon’s  last  volume  of  “  The  History  of  England,”  are 
two  letters  of  George  the  Third  to  Bishop  Hurd,  on  tho  death  of  one 
of  his  children,  in  1783,  which  brightly  illustrate  the  King’s  private  and 
familiar  character.  Vol.  vii.  Appendix,  p.  31.  IV.  B.  R. 


202 


LECTURE  SIXTH. 


Bible,”  George  the  Third  remarked,  “  Apology  !  I  did 
not  kuow  that  the  Bible  needed  an  apology.” 

Turning  to  the  sacred  literature  of  the  seventeenth  cen¬ 
tury,  you  find  in  it  not  only  greater  power  of  argumenta¬ 
tion,  but  also  blended  with  it  a  fervid  devotional  spirit, 
the  glow  of  genuine  imagination,  kindling  narrative, 
reasoning,  persuasion,  philosophy, — all  with  one  broad 
light,  so  that  it  is  not  the  logical  faculty  which  alone  is 
appealed  to,  but  the  whole  spiritual  nature,  the  intellect, 
and  the  heart,  the  soul  of  man.  This  would  be  seen  most 
clearly,  perhaps,  in  the  writings  of  the  most  imaginative, 
and  eloquent  of  the  great  divines  of  that  century — Bishop 
Jeremy  Taylor :  his  Sermons,  or  his  “  Holy  Living  and 
Dying,”  the  volume  which  may  be  spoken  of  as  the  most 
admirable  manual  of  devotion  in  the  language,  or  to  that, 
the  greatest  probably-of  all  his  works,  “  The  Life  of  our 
Saviour.”  Before  those  who  are  acquainted  with  the 
writings  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  I  would  not  trust  myself  to 
speak  of  them,  without  a  larger  opportunity  to  do  honour 
to  them  than  time  would  now  give  me :  to  those  who 
have  yet  in  reserve  the  delight  which  such  acquaintance 
gives,  I  could  hardly  so  speak  that  the  soberest  truth 
should  not  sound  like  exaggeration.  Every  thing,  almost, 
that  is  attractive  in  a  merely  literary  point  of  view,  is  to 
be  found  there :  a  boundless  variety  of  illustration  gathered 
by  a  marvellous  scholarship,  the  deepest  and  the  gentlest 
habits  of  feeling,  an  opulence  of  imagination  and  fancy 
like  Shakspeare’s  or  Spenser’s,  and  a  style  that  is  the  music 
worthy  of  such  a  spirit.  A  few  years  ago,  the  writings 
of  Jeremy  Taylor  existed  only  in  the  early  Folios,  but 
now  they  are  accessible  in  the  more  convenient  forms  of 
modern  editions.  The  Holy  Living  and  Dying,  published 


SUNDAY  READING. 


203 


separately,  and  in  many  editions,  is  a  volume  not  to 
borrow,  not  to  take  out  of  a  library,  but  tu  own,  to  bold 

it  as  a  possession. 

Without  attempting  to  speak  of  Barrow,  or  the  other 
great  English  divines  of  a  former  age,  1  can  only  remark, 
that  the  literature  is  abundant  in  specimens  of  pulpit 
wisdom  and  oratory;  and  that  in  our  own  day,  the 
strength  and  beauty  of  the  olden  time  in  this  respect 
have  come  back  again  in  some  of  the  contemporary  sermon 
literature. 

The  history  of  the  Christian  church  is  another  subject 
on  which  English  literature  gives  us  reading  at  once  most 
agreeable  and  instructive.  All  the  charms  of  Southey’s 
prose  may  please  you  in  his  “  Book  of-the  Church or 
turning  to  the  old  church  historian,  Thomas  Fuller,  you 
may  find  in  his  History  of  the  Church  in  Great  Britain 
(one  of  the  most  remarkable  works  in  the  language)  the 
varied  powers  of  learning,  sagacity,  pathos,  an  overflowing 
wit,  humour,  and  imagination,  all  animating  the  pages 
of  a  church  history.  The  interest  in  this  subject  may  be 
expanded  and  deepened  by  the  studious  reading  of  that 
poetic  commentary  on  church  history,  the  series  of  Words¬ 
worth’s  Ecclesiastical  Sonnets,  in  which  the  poet-historian, 
with  all  a  poet’s  truthfulness  and  feeling,  has  traced  the 
course  of  Christian  faith,  from  the  trepidation  of  the 
Druids  at  the  first  tidings  of  the  Gospel,  onward  through 
the  various  fortunes  of  the  church,  down  to  the  consecra¬ 
tion  of  the  first  American  Bishop.  This  series  of  poems 
is  a  be'  itiful  and  salutary  study  in  connection  with 
English  history,  for  there  is  not  an  important  event,  or 
period,  or  influence,  or  saintly  character  in  me  annals  of 
the  cV»  ?h  in  England,  on  which  there  is  not  shed  the 


204 


LECTURE  SIXTH. 


.ight  of  wise,  imaginative,  and  feeling  commentary.  You 
have  not  forgotten,  perhaps,  the  lines  which  in  a  former 
lecture  I  quoted,  on  th<^  conversion  of  the  Saxon  king, 
and  the  incident  that  led  to  it. 

Much  appropriate  Sunday  reading  is  supplied  by  the 
biography  of  the  good  men  and  women  of  early  and  late 
times.  Amid  the  large  variety  of  such  records,  one  may 
be  named — none  more  modest  in  origin,  more  unambitious 
in  plan,  but  none  more  admirable  as  a  memorial.  I  refer 
to  Izaak  Walton’s  Lives,  of  which  the  poet  has  said  : 

“There  are  no  colours  in  the  fairest  sky 
So  fair  as  these.  The  feather,  whence  the  pen 
Was  shaped  that  traced  the  lives  of  these  good  men 
Dropped  from  an  angel’s  wing.”* 

Passing  to  the  imaginative  side  of  our  literature,  there 
is  the  sacred  prose  allegory,  “  The  Pilgrim’s  Progress,” 
a  work  second,  I  believe,  only  to  Robinson  Crusoe  in  the 
largeness  of  the  audience  it  has  gained  in  the  world. 
Allegory  has  been  beautifully  revived  in  our  own  day  in 
“The  Old  Man’s  Home.”f 

To  any  one  who  justly  appreciates  the  moral  uses  of 
poetry  as  a  spiritual  ministry,  it  will  be  apparent  that  it 
should  enter,  well  chosen,  into  our  Sunday  reading;  and 
there  is  no  more  marked  characteristic  of  English  litera¬ 
ture  than  the  abundance  and  excellence  of  its  sacred 
poetry.  The  seventeenth  century  contributed  largely  to  it — 
beautifully  so  in  the  well-known  poems  of  that  saintly  coun 
try  parson,  George  Herbert,  and  in  the  poetry,  almost  un 


*  Wordsworth,  p.  306.  Sonnet  on  Walton’s  Book  of  Lives. 

T  Tho  Old  Man’s  Home,  by  the  Reverend  William  Adams,  M.A 
Author  of  “The  Shadow  of  tLe  Cross.” 


SUNDAY  READING 


205 


known,  till  its  recent  reproduction,  fit  to  be  associated 
with  Herbert’s — the  poems  of  Henry  Vaughan ;  and  in 
later  times  the  English  muse  has  not  been  regardless  of 
its  peculiar  sacred  functions. 

I  must  hasten,  however,  to  the  great  sacred  poems  of  the 
language,  and  recur  first  to  Milton’s  epics.  Of  these  poems, 
considered  with  reference  to  imaginative  power,  and  all  its 
accessories  of  wondrous  verse,  no  language  could  express 
too  strongly  one’s  sense  of  their  sublimity  and  beauty. 
Not  only  for  poetic  description  of  nature  and  regions  super¬ 
natural,  but  also  in  deep  human  interest,  the  Paradise 
Lost  stands  among  the  world’s  great  poems.  But  when 
we  study  it  as  a  sacred  poem,  and  ask  ourselves  carefully 
as  to  the  religious  impressions  it  gives,  the  character 
becomes  questionable.  This  is  chiefly  in  two  respects : 
the  character  of  Satan,  and  the  bold  handling  of  the 
Divine  nature.  The  Miltonic  Satan  is  undoubtedly  one 
of  the  most  stupendous  and  awful  creations  of  poetry;  one 
of  its  grandest  studies,  but  there  is  a  heroic  grandeur 
in  it  which  wins,  do  what  you  will,  a  human  sympathy. 
It  is  impossible  to  look  on  the  Apostate  Angel  without 
awe,  and  somewhat  of  admiration,  rather  than  abhorrence; 
sometimes  perhaps  with  something  of  pity,  as  in  that 
famous  passage,  where,  having  called  his  followers,  myriads 
of  the  fallen  angels  thronged  around  their  chief,  and  the 
peerage  of  Pandemonium  stood  in  mute  expectation  of  his 
voice. 

“  Thrice  he  essay’d,  and  thrice,  in  spite  of  scorn, 

Tears,  such  as  angels  weep,  burst  forth.” 

It  was  from  such  a  representation  of  Satan  as  is  giveu 
throughout  the  poem,  that  Arnold’s  deep  religious  feeling 
revolted,  remarking,  that  “  by  giving  him  a  human  like- 
18 


206 


LECTURE  SIXTH. 


ness,  and  representing  him  as  a  bad  man,  you  necessarily 
get  some  images  of  what  is  good  as  well  as  of  what  is  bad ; 
for  no  living  man  is  entirely  evil.  Even  banditti  have 
some  generous  qualities;  whereas  the  representation  of 
the  devil  should  be  purely  and  entirely  evil,  without  a 
tinge  of  good,  as  that  of  God  should  be  purely  and  entirely 
good,  without  a  tinge  of  evil;  and  you  can  no  more  get  the 
one  than  the  other  from  any  thing  human.  With  the 
heathen  it  was  different;  their  gods  were  themselves  made 
up  of  good  and  of  evil,  and  so  might  well  be  mixed  up  with 
human  associations.  The  hoofs  and  the  horns  and  the 
tail  were  all  useful  in  this  way,  as  giving  you  an  image 
of  something  altogether  disgusting.  And  so  Mephisto- 
philes  in  Faust,  and  the  other  contemptible  and  hateful 
character  of  the  Little  Master,  in  Sintram,  are  far  more 
true  than  the  Satan  of  the  Paradise  Lost.”* 

With  regard  to  Milton’s  hardihood  in  carrying  his  ima¬ 
gination  into  the  mysteries  of  the  being  of  the  Most  High, 
and  the  unreserved  freedom  with  which  the  Father  and 
the  Saviour  are  set  before  us  in  this  dramatic  epic,  I  be¬ 
lieve  that  even  the  least  sensitive  reader  must  be  conscious 
of  an  instinctive  shrinking  from  many  passages  of  the 
poem  It  is  in  this,  even  more  than  in  the  character  of  the 
Arch-fiend,  that  the  Paradise  Lost — and  the  Paradise  Re¬ 
gained  also — may  blunt  the  sense  of  adoration,  and  lower, 
instead  of  raising,  some  of  the  emotions  which  sacred 
poetry  ought  to  inspire.  There  are  passages  in  the  poems 
which,  perhaps,  it  would  be  better  never  to  read  a  second 
time.  I  should  be  loth  to  read  them  aloud  here,  because 
it  would  be  difficult  to  divest  them  of  a  certain  air  of 


*  Arnold’s  Life  and  Correspondence,  in  a  note  to  Appendix  C.,  p.  468. 


SUNDAY  READING. 


207 

irreverence,  which  was  not  a  purposed  irreverence  in  the 
pure  and  lofty  soul  of  Milton,  but  was  an  unconscious 
manifestation  of  the  intellectual  pride  which  was  part  of 
his  character,  and  of  the  spiritual  pride  which  belongel 
to  his  times. 

There  is  an  impressive  contrast  between  the  spirit  with 
which  Milton  and  Shakspeare  have  treated  the  most  sacred 
subjects.  A  reverential  temper,  less  looked  for  in  the  dra¬ 
matic  bard,  marks  every  passage  in  which  allusion  is  made 
to  such  subjects — a  feeling  of  profound  reverential  reserve  : 
and  as  this  may  not  have  been  generally  observed,  let  me 
group  some  brief  and  characteristic  passages  together. 
There  is  the  beautiful  allusion  to  Christmas  in  Hamlet : 

“  Some  say,  that  ever  ’gainst  that  season  comes 
Wherein  our  Saviour’s  birth  is  celebrated, 

This  bird  of  dawning  singeth  all  night  long: 

And  then,  they  say, nor  spirit  dares  stir  abroad; 

The  nights  are  wholesome ;  then  no  planets  strike, 

No  fairy  takes,  no  witch  hath  power  to  charm, 

So  hallow’d  and  so  gracious  is  the  time.” 

The  mention,  in  Henry  the  Fourth,  of  the  Holy  Land — 

“  those  holy  fields 

Over  whose  acres  walk’d  those  blessed  feet, 

Which,  fourteen  hundred  years  ago,  were  nail’d. 

For  our  advantage,  on  the  bitter  cross.” 

Again,  the  single  line  in  Winter’s  Tale,  in  which  Poly 
xenes  refers  to  Judas  and  the  betrayal 

“my  name 

Be  yok’d  with  his,  that  did  betray  the  beet!” 

The  allusion  to  the  scheme  of  Redemption  and  to  the 
Lord’s  Prayer  in  Portia’s  plea  for  mercy 

“  Though  justice  be  thy  plea,  consider  this — 

That  in  the  course  of  justice  none  of  us 
Should  see  salvation;  we  do  pray  for  mercy; 


208 


LECTURE  SIXTn. 


And  that  same  prayer  doth  teach  us  all  to  render 
The  deeds  of  mercy.” 

And  most  impressive,  perhaps,  of  all — the  deep  feeling  in 
the  words  of  the  saintly  Isabella  : 

“  Alas  !  alas  ! 

Why,  all  the  souls  that  were,  were  forfeit  once ; 

And  he,  that  might  the  ’vantage  best  have  took 
Found  out  the  remedy  :  How  would  you  be 
If  he,  which  is  the  top  of  judgment,  should 
But  judge  you  as  you  are?  0  think  of  that; 

And  mercy  then  will  breathe  within  your  lips 
Like  man  new  made.” 

I  can  do  little  more  now  than  allude  to  a  contrast  still 
more  striking  between  Miltou’s  wTant  of  reverential  re¬ 
serve  and  Spenser’s  handling-  of  religious  truth,  moving 
gently  and  with  awe,  as  if  with  an  ever-abiding  sense 
that  the  ground  he  was  treading  on  was  holy  ground. 
It  was  characteristic  of  Milton  and  of  his  times,  when 
religion  was  freely  talked  about  and  rudely  handled,  to 
make  his  great  epic  avowedly  a  sacred  poem — to  put  it  in 
direct  connection,  if  possible,  with  scriptural  subjects. 
The  genius  of  Spenser  could  not  have  ventured  on  what 
would  have  seemed  to  his  gentle  and  reverential  nature 
a  profane  handling  of  hallowed  things  and  thereupon  he 
employed,  not  the  direct,  but  the  veiled  mode  of  sacred 
instruction.  That  veil  interposed  by  his  imagination  was 
a  gorgeous  one,  so  interwoven  with  the  richness  of  pagan- 
poetry,  “  barbaric  gold,”  and  of  romantic  Christian 
fancy,  that  the  dazzled  eye  often  fails  to  look  through  it 
to  the  scriptural  truth  that  is  steadily  beaming  there, 
threat  injustice  is  done  to  Spenser,  when,  bewildered 
with  the  mazes  of  his  inexhaustible  creations,  or  by 
the  brightness  of  his  exuberant  fancy,  we  see  in  the 


SUNDAY  READING. 


209 


Faery  Queen  nothing  more  than  a  wondrous  fairy  tale,  a 
(vild  romance,  or  a  gorgeous  pageant  of  chivalry.  Be¬ 
yond  all  this,  far  within  it,  is  an  inner  life;  aud  that  is 
breathed  into  it  from  the  Bible.  It  is  the  great  sacred 
poem  of  English  literature.  “  I  dare  be  known  to  think,” 
said  Milton,  addressing  the  Parliament  of  England,  “  our 
sage  and  serious  poet,  Spenser,  a  better  teacher  than 
Scotus  or  Aquinas.”*  When  John  Wesley  gave  direc¬ 
tions  for  the  clerical  studies  of  his  Methodist  disciples, 
he  recommended  them  to  combine  with  the  study  of 
the  Hebrew  Bible  and  the  Greek  Testament,  the  read¬ 
ing  of  the  Faery  Queen ;  and,  in  our  own  day,  Mr. 
Keble,  the  poet  of  “  The  Christian  Year,”  has  de¬ 
scribed  the  Faery  Queen  as  “  a  continual  deliberate 
endeavour  to  enlist  the  restless  intellect  and  chivalrous 
feeling  of  an  inquiring  and  romantic  age  on  the  side  of 
goodness  and  faith,  of  purity  and  justice. ”f 

Spenser  himself,  expounding  his  allegory  to  his  friend 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  said,  “The  general  end  of  all  the 
book  is  to  fashion  a  gentleman,  or  noble  person,  in  virtu¬ 
ous  and  gentle  discipline.”!  Christian  philosopher,  as 
well  as  poet,  Spenser’s  deep  conviction,  manifest  through¬ 
out  the  poem,  was  that  the  only  discipline  wherewith  to 
tame  the  rebellious  heart  of  man  is  that  morality  which, 
in  one  of  his  own  sweet  phrases,  bears 

"The  lineaments  of  gospel-books. 


*  Milton's  ProseWorks,  8vo.p.l08.  On  Liberty  of  Unlicensed  Printing, 
f  Quarterly  Review,  vol.  xxxii.  p.  225,  June,  1825.  In  an  article  on 
Sacred  Poetry,  attributed  to  Mr.  Keble. 

|  Spenser’s  Letter  to  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  prefixed  to  Poetical  Works 
vol.  i.  p.  5. 

I  An  Elegie  on  Friend’s  Passion  for  his  Astrophell.  Spenser’s 
Poetical  Works,  vol.  v.  p.  261. 


IS* 


210 


LECTURE  SIXTH. 


The  student  of  sacred  poetry  must  not  bo  startled  at 
meeting  with  thoughts,  or  rather  images,  drawn  from  other 
sources  than  Holy  Scripture.  The  imagination  of  a  great 
poet  can  make  the  heathen  world  tributary  to-  the  Chris¬ 
tian  ;  you  meet  in  the  Faery  Queen  the  exploded  mytho¬ 
logy  of  paganism,  and  Scripture  story,  so  shadowed  forth 
together  that  the  sanctity  of  the  latter  is  no  wise  sullied 
by  the  contact.  When,  one  of  Spenser’s  heroes  visits  the 
realms  of  the  lost  spirits,  he  beholds  Tantalus  with  the 
hunger  and  the  thirst  of  ages  on  him,  and  the  dread  of 
centuries  to  come;  and  not  far  off  another  wretch,  plunged 
in  the  infernal  waters,  washing  his  blood-stained  hands — 
washing  eternally,  hopelessly,  the  deep  damnation  of  Pon¬ 
tius  Pilate ;  images,  one  caught  from  pagan  fable,  the 
other  from  Holy  Writ;  images,  too,  of  unending  woe,  the 
sufferings  hereafter  of  a  wicked  life. 

In  like  manner,  when  Milton  recounts  the  hosts  of 
Pandemonium,  there  is  that  transcendent  effort  of  the 
imagination  by  which  he  grasps  the  mythology  of  classi¬ 
cal  antiquity  and  thrusts  it  down  into  hell,  ranging  the 
gods  of  Greece — Olympic  Jove  himself- — with  the  inferior 
powers  of  the  apostate  angels,  Satan’s  followers  and  ser¬ 
vants.  It  is  a  mistake,  I  think,  to  limit  our  notice  of 
sacred  poetry  to  that  which  has  an  express  and  direct 
connection  with  biblical  topics,  for  it  is  a  high  prerogative 
of  the  Christian  imagination  to  rescue  from  the  realms  of 
error,  fictions  and  superstitions,  and  make  them  safely 
subservient  to  the  cause  of  revealed  truth.  It  is  this  pro¬ 
cess,  admirably  conceived  and  executed,  which  entitles 
Southey’s  Curse  of  Kehama  and  Thalaba  to  be  ranked 
with  the  great  sacred  poems  of  the  language. 

Thus  a  large  range  may  be  demanded  for  sacred  poetry; 


SUNDAY  READING. 


231 

and  yet  in  another  aspect  all  narrowed  to  the  relation  in 
which  it  stands  to  revealed  teaching  and  Holy  Writ. 
That  remarkable  poet  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Geoi’ge 
Wither — whose  writings,  unfortunately,  are  so  little  acces¬ 
sible — seems  to  have  been  disposed  to  look  more  to  the 
resources  of  his  own  thoughts  than  either  to  the  pro¬ 
fession  of  preaching  or  the  increase  of  books  :  he  says  it 
was  not  his  religion 

“  Up  and  down  the  land  to  seek, 

To  find  those  wcll-breath’d  lecturers,  that  can 
Preach  thrice  a  Sabbath,  and  six  times  a  week. 

Yet  be  as  fresh  as  when  they  first  began.” 

And  speaking  of  books,  he  writes  : 

“For  many  books  I  care  not,  and  my  store 
Might  now  suffice  me,  though  I  had  no  more 
Than  God’s  two  Testaments,  and  then  withal 
That  mighty  volume  which  the  world  we  call; 

For  these  well  look’d  on,  well  in  mind  preserved, 

The  present  Age’s  passages  observed ; 

My  private  actions  seriously  o’erviewed, 

My  thoughts  recalled,  and  what  of  them  ensued, 

Are  books,  which  better  far  instruct  me  can, 

Than  all  the  other  paper-works  of  man; 

And  some  of  these  I  may  be  reading,  too, 

Where’er  I  come,  or  whatsoe’er  I  do.”* 

A  poet,  a  happy- hearted  poet,  like  Wither,  whose 
imagination  could  make  cheerful  employment  within  his 
prison  walls,  tnight  speak  thus;  but  for  our  common 
minds  the  poet’s  help  is  needed  :  it  will  often  help  us  the 
better  to  know  and  feel  the  three  volumes  with  which  the 
old  poet  was  content  with — the  two  Testaments  and  the 
mighty  volume  called  the  world ;  and  doubtless  not  only 


*  Wither,  as  quoted  in  “  Church  Poetry,”  p  72. 


212 


LECTUItE  SIXTH. 


the  sacred  poetry,  but  all  high  and  serious  poetry,  may 
be  traced  to  some  germ  of  revealed  truth.  The  highest 
human  poetry  is  iu  affinity  with  the  divine  poetry ;  and, 
however  they  may  differ  in  degree,  I  do  not  believe  that 
they  are  separated  by  characteristic  difference  in  kind. 
What  are  the  Latin  hymns  of  the  mediaeval  church,  such 
as  that  famous  one  on  the  Day  of  Judgment,  which  clung 
to  the  dying  lips  of  Walter  Scott,  murmuring  snatches  of 
it  when  his  mind  had  on  all  else  faded  away, — what  were 
those  poems  but  human  versions  of  inspiration  ?*  What 
are  the  hymns  of  Ken  and  of  Keble  but  echoes  from  the 
lyric  song  of  the  Bible  ?  Wordsworth’s  sublime  com- 
munings  with  nature  do  but  amplify  and  reiterate  the 
Psalmist’s  declaration  of  the  glory  of  God  as  manifested 
in  the  universe ;  and  when  the  poet  shows  that 
“Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy, ”f 
and  teaches  the  holiness  and  beauty  of  the  innocence  of 
childhood — a  theme  for  sophisticated  man  to  reflect  on — 
what  is  this  but  an  expression  of  the  truth  that  is  con¬ 
tained  in  the  Saviour’s  words,  “  of  such  is  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  ?” 

Aubrey  De  Yere’s  thoughtful  lines  on  Sorrow,  are  but 
in  echo  of  the  divine  teaching  : 

*  “We  very  often  heard  distinctly  the  cadence  of  the  Dies  Ircc ;  and 
[  think  the  very  last  stanza  that  we  could  make  out  was  the  still 
greater  favourite  : 

Stabat  mater  dolorosa, 

Juxta  crucem  lachrymosa, 

Dum  pendebat  filius.” 

Lockhart’s  Scott,  vol.  x.  p.  214.  As  this  volume  is  passing  through 
the  press,  we  have  received  the  news  of  Mr.  Lockhart’s  death  at  Ab¬ 
botsford,  in  December,  1854.  W.  B.  R. 

f  Wordsworth’s  Ode  on  Intimations  of  Immortality.  Works,  p.  388. 


SUNDAY  READING. 


2It 


"Count  each  affliction,  whether  light  or  grave 
God’s  messenger  sent  down  to  thee.  Do  thou 
With  courtesy  receive  him :  rise  and  bow, 

And  ere  his  shadow  pass  thy  threshold,  crave 
Permission  first  his  heavenly  feet  to  lave. 

Then  lay  before  him  all  thou  hast.  Allow 
No  cloud  of  passion  to  usurp  thy  brow, 

Or  mar  thy  hospitality  ;  no  wave 

Of  mortal  tumult  to  obliterate 

The  soul’s  marmoreal  calmness.  Grief  should  be, 

Like  joy,  majestic,  equable,  sedate, 

Confirming,  cleansing,  raising,  making  free; 

Strong  to  consume  small  troubles;  to  commend 
Great  thoughts,  grave  thoughts,  thoughts  lasting  to  the  end.”* 

Again  :  another  living  poet  does  but  teach  how  to  apply 
a  well-known  text,  and  feel  its  truth  the  more,  when  ho 
says : 

“Wo  live  not  in  our  moments  or  our  years — 

The  Present  we  fling  from  us  as  the  rind 
Of  some  sweet  Future,  which  we  after  find 
Bitter  to  taste,  or  bind  that  in  with  fears, 

And  water  it  beforehand  with  our  tears — 

Vain  tears  for  that  which  never  may  arrive; 

Meanwhile  the  joy  whereby  we  ought  to  live 
Neglected  or  unheeded  disappears. 

Wiser  it  were  to  welcome  and  make  ours 
Whate’er  of  good,  though  small,  the  Present  brings — 

Kind  greetings,  sunshine,  song  of  birds,  and  flowers, 

With  a  child’s  pure  delight  in  little  things; 

And  of  the  griefs  unborn  to  rest  secure, 

Knowing  that  morcy  ever  will  enduro.”f 

This  is  a  poet’s  teaching  of  the  cheerfulness  of  Chris¬ 
tian  faith  and  the  love  of  Christian  content  and  happiness; 

*  Aubrey  De  Vere’s  Waldenses,  with  other  poems  quoted  in  an 
Essay  on  De  Vere’s  Poems,  in  Taylor's  Notes  from  Books,  p.  215. 

f  Sonnet  by  the  Rev.  R.  C.  Trench,  quoted  in  Church  Poetry,  or 
Christian  Thoughts  in  Old  and  Modern  Verse,  p.  62. 

O 


LECTURE  SITXU. 


Z14 

and  this  is  hut  the  rebuke  of  unchristian  sullenit?ss;  and 
the  praise  of  Christian  thankfulness  : 

“Some  murmur,  when  their  sky  is  clear 
And  wholly  bright  to  view, 

If  one  small  speck  of  dark  appear 
In  their  great  heaven  of  blue. 

And  some  with  thankful  love  are  fill’d 
If  but  one  streak  of  light, 

One  ray  of  God’s  good  mercy  gild 
The  darkness  of  their  night. 

In  palaces  are  hearts  that  ask, 

In  discontent  and  pride, 

Why  life  is  such  a  dreary  task, 

And  all  good  things  denied  1 
And  hearts  in  poorest  huts  admire, 

IIow  love  has  in  their  aid 
(Love  that  not  ever  seems  to  tire) 

Such  rich  provision  made.”'* 

Thus  do  the  Poets  minister  in  the  Temple. 


*  Trench’s  Poems,  p.  118. 


LECTUKE  Vll. 


^Herature  of  %  Stfemlrenflj  anb  <Eig^fe£nf^r  Centums-* 

Milton’s  old  age — Donne’s  Sermons — No  great  school  of  poetry  with¬ 
out  love  of  nature — Blank  in  this  respect  between  Paradise  Lost  and 
Thomson’s  Seasons — Court  of  Charles  the  Second — Samson  Ago- 
nistes — Milton’s  Sonnets — Clarendon’s  History  of  the  Rebellion — Pil¬ 
grim’s  Progress — Dryden’s  Odes — Absalom  and  Acliitophel — Rhym¬ 
ing  tragedies — Age  of  Queen  Aune — British  statesmen — Essayists — 
Tatler — Spectator — Sir  Roger  Do  Coverley — Pope — Lord  Boling- 
broke — English  infidels — Johnson’s  Dictionary — Gray — Collins — 
Cowper — Goldsmith — The  Vicar  of  Wakefield — Cowpor — Elizabeth 
Browning. 

In  proceeding  to  the  literature  of  the  close  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  we  approach  a  period  which  is 
marked  by  great  change.  Heretofore  in  the  succession 
of  literary  eras  there  had  been  a  continuity  of  influence, 
which  had  not  only  served  to  give  new  strength  and 
develope  new  resources,  but  to  preserve  the  power  of  the 
antecedent  literature  unimpaired.  The  present  was  never 
unnaturally  or  disloyally  divorced  from  the  past.  The 
author  in  one  generation  found  discipline  for  his  genius 
in  reverent  and  affectionate  intercourse  with  great  minds 
of  other  days.  Such  was  their  dutiful  spirit  of  discipline, 
strengthening  but  not  surrendering  their  own  native 
power — the  discipline  so  much  wiser  and  so  much  more 
richly  rewarded  in  the  might  it  gains,  than  the  self-suffi¬ 
cient  discipline,  which,  trusting  to  the  pride  of  origi- 


*  Thursday,  February  If,  1S50 


215 


216 


LECTURE  SEVENTH. 


nality  or  the  influences  of  the  day,  disclaims  the  ministry 
of  time-honoured  wisdom.  Milton  was  studious  of  Spen¬ 
ser,  and  Spenser  was  grateful  and  reverent  of  Chaucer; 
and  thus,  as  age  after  age  gave  birth  to  the  great  poets, 
they  were  bound  “  each  to  each  in  natural  piety.”  But 
when  we  come  to  those  who  followed  Milton,  the  golden 
chain  is  broken.  The  next  generation  of  the  poets  aban¬ 
doned  the  hereditary  allegiance  which  had  heretofore  been 
cherished  so  dutifully,  transmitted  so  faithfully. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  earlier  literature  began  to 
fall  into  neglect,  displaced  with  all  its  grandeur  and 
varied  power  of  truth  and  beauty,  displaced  for  more  than 
a  century  by  an  inferior  literature,  inferior  and  impurer, 
so  that  for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  many  of  the  finest 
influences  on  the  English  mind  were  almost  wholly  with¬ 
drawn.  Indeed,  it  is  only  within  the  present  century 
that  the  restoration  of  those  influences  has  been  accom¬ 
plished.  Here  we  see  within  our  own  day,  the  revival  of 
early  English  literature,  bringing  from  dust  and  oblivion 
the  old  books  to  light  and  life  again,  to  do  their  perpetual 
work  upon  the  earth — the  work  that  was  denied  to  them 
by  an  age  that  was  unworthy  of  them.  No  longer  since 
than  ten  years  or  less,  there  was  no  good  edition  of  the 
complete  works  of  Chaucer.  Ten  years  ago,  the  sermons 
of  the  greatest  preacher  of  the  times  of  James  the  First, 
Donne,  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul’s,  were  almost  inaccessible, 
entirely  so,  I  might  say,  to  scholars  in  this  country,  in 
the  first  and  very  rare  folio  edition.  Even  the  writings 
of  Jeremy  Taylor  were  a  rare  treasure,  until  about  twenty- 
five  years  ago,  Bishop  Heber  did  the  good  service  of  giv¬ 
ing  ready  access  to  them  in  a  modern  edition;  and  not  to 
speak  of  the  miscellaneous  literature,  over  which  the  dust 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  AND  XVIII.  CENTURIES.  217 


lay  so  thick,  all  the  early  dramatists,  save  Shaks- 
peare,  lay  in  comparative  neglect  till  their  recent  resto¬ 
ration. 

I  refer  to  this  neglect  as  both  a  symptom  and  a  cause 
of  the  decline  of  English  literature,  which  began  at  the 
close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  lasted  for  about  a 
century.  Genius  of  a  higher  order  would  never  have  di¬ 
vorced  itself  from  such  an  influence.  It  would  have 
strengthened  itself  by  loyalty  to  it. 

Besides  their  disloyalty  to  the  great  poets  who  had 
gone  before,  the  poets  of  the  new  generation  were  guilty 
of  another  neglect,  equally  characteristic,  and  more  fatal 
perhaps  to  high  poetic  aspirations;  I  refer  to  the  neglect 
of  the  poetic  vision  of  nature,  external  nature,  the  sights 
and  sounds  of  this  material  world,  the  glory  of  which, 
proclaimed  in  divine  inspiration,  is  ever  associated  with 
“  the  consecration  and  the  poet’s  dream.”  Who  can 
question,  without  questioning  the  Creator’s  wisdom  and 
goodness,  that  the  things  of  earth  and  sky  have  their 
ministry  on  man’s  spiritual  nature?  We  may  not  be  able 
to  measure  or  define  it,  but  it  is  a  perpetual  and  universal 
influence,  and  it  must  be  for  good.  Most  of  all  is  it 
recognised  by  the  poet,  prepared  as  he  is 

“By  his  intense  tonceptions  to  receive, 

Deeply  the  lesson  deep  of  love  which  he 
Whom  nature,  by  whatever  means,  has  taught 
To  feel  intensely,  cannot  but  receive.”* 

No  great  poet,  perhaps  I  may  say  no  great  writer,  is 
without  the  deep  sense  of  the  beauty  and  glory  of  the 


*  The  Excursion,  hook  i.  397. 
19 


I 


218  LECTURE  SEVENTH. 

universe,  the  earth  that  is  trod  on,  the  heavens  that  are 
gazed  at.  It  is  an  element  of  the  poetry  of  the  Bible. 
The  classical  poetry  of  antiquity  shows  it ;  it  abounds,  in 
vernal  exuberance,  in  Chaucer;  you  meet  with  it  per¬ 
petually  in  Spenser,  and  Shakspeare,  and  Milton,  and  in 
the  prose  of  Bacon  and  Taylor.  But  when  we  come  to 
the  next  generation,  particularly  of  poets,  the  spiritual 
communion  with  nature  was  at  an  end.  They  had  not 
vision  of  sunlight  or  starlight,  but  were  busy  within  doors 
with  things  of  lamp-light  or  candle-light.  They  took  not 
heed  of  mountain,  or  seaside,  or  the  open  field,  and  nature’s 
music  there,  but  city,  “  the  town,”  street  and  house  were 
all  in  all  to  them : 

“  The  soft  blue  sky  did  never  melt 
Into  their  hearts.”* 

If  it  can  be  shown,  as  it  undoubtedly  can,  that  thought¬ 
ful,  genial  communion  with  Nature  is  an  accompaniment 
of  all  poetry  of  the  highest  order,  in  all  ages,  surely  we 
may  infer  that  a  literary  era  which  is  deficient  in  this 
element  is  the  era  of  a  lower  literature.  Now,  it  has 
been  ascertained,  by  careful  examination,  that,  with  two 
or  three  unimportant  exceptions,  “  the  poetry  of  the  pe¬ 
riod  intervening  between  the  publication  of  the  Paradise 
Lost  and  Thomson’s  Seasons  (a  period  of  about  sixty 
years)  does  not  contain  a  single  new  image  of  external 
nature  ;  and  scarcely  presents  a  familiar  one  from  which 
it  can  be  inferred  that  the  eye  of  the  poet  had  been 
steadily  fixed  upon  his  object — much  less  that  his  feelings 
had  urged  him  to  work  upon  it  in  the  spirit  of  genuine 


*  Peter  Bell,  part  i.  p.  163. 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  AND  X  V  III.  CE  N  T  UR  I E  3.  219 


imagination.”*  Let  us  now  rapidly  consider  some  of  the 
causes,  or,  at  least,  accompaniments,  of  the  degeneracy 
of  English  literature,  and  particularly  of  its  poetry,  which 
began  in  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
The  civil  war  was  over,  and  the  fierce  bloodshedding  which 
marked  England’s  civil  wars,  and  which  should  be  an 
awful  warning  to  all  who  are  sprung  from  that  stock,  the 
strong  usurpation  of  Cromwell  had  passed  away — each 
period  with  its  evils. f  The  Restoration  came,  and  what 
were  the  evils  that  came  along  with  it  ?  In  the  Middle 
Ages,  the  miseries  that  were  the  common  train  of  war  in 
Europe  were  pestilence  and  famine ;  but,  after  the  do¬ 
mestic  war  in  England  in  the  seventeenth  century — an  ec¬ 
clesiastical  civil  war — came  debauchery,  licentiousness,  riot, 
and  blasphemy.  The  rigour  of  Puritanism  once  removed, 
there  came  quickly  in  its  stead  a  lawlessness  in  which  the 
exultation  of  triumph  mingled,  and  men  took  a  party 
pride  in  immorality.  All  high  moods  of  feeling  were 
ridiculed :  honour  was  a  jest,  and  so  were  justice  and 
dignity,  and  piety  and  domestic  virtue ;  and  conjugal  faith 


*  Appendix  to  Wordsworth’s  Works.  Essay,  p.  490. 
f  “  The  usurpation  of  Cromwell”  is  a  phrase  about  which,  in  our 
day,  there  may  be  some  question,  not,  however,  here  to  be  discussed. 
There  is  American  authority  for  it,  which  I  cite,  as  curiously  illus¬ 
trative  of  the  cavalier  tendencies  of  “  the  Father  of  his  country."  In 
1792,  Washington  sent  to  Sir  Isaac  Heard  a  memorandum  as  to  his 
family,  which  begins  thus : 

“In  the  year  1657,  or  thereabouts,  and  during  the  usurpation  of 
Oliver  Cromwell,  John  and  Lawrence  Washington  emigrated  from  the 
North  of  England  and  settled  at  Bridge’s  Creek,  on  the  Potomac  River, 
in  the  county  of  Westmoreland.  But  from  whom  they  descended,  the 
subscriber  is  possessed  of  no  document  to  ascertain.” — Sparlcs’  Wusn- 
ini/ton,  vol.  xii.  p.  517.  W.  B.  R. 


220 


LECTURE  SEVENTH. 


was  the  greatest  jest  of  all.  The  civil  war  bad  also  de¬ 
moralized  the  nation  by  breaking  up  the  habits  of  domes¬ 
tic  life  :  households  were  destroyed,  and  their  proprietors 
found  a  shelter  in  taverns ;  and  when  the  necessity  for 
such  disordered  life  had  passed  away,  the  low  habits  were 
left  behind. 

To  a  nation,  thus  diseased,  there  was  perpetually  passing 
the  moral  poison  that  issued  from  the  avenues  of  the  pa¬ 
lace.  From  the  earliest  era  of  the  history  of  the  island, 
no  portion  had  been  so  loathsome  as  the  quarter  of  a  cen¬ 
tury  during  which  Charles  Stuart,  the  younger,  was  on 
the  throne.  When  the  early  life  of  Queen  Elizabeth  was 
visited  with  afflictions,  she  came  forth  from  her  trials  with 
a  spirit  chastened  and  invigorated  for  a  mighty  reign. 
But  upon  Charles  Stuart  the  lesson  of  adversity  was 
wasted.  The  bloody  fate  of  his  father  might  well  have 
thrown  a  solemn  memory  of  the  past  over  all  his  after 
life.  When  the  Restoration  brought  him  once  more  to 
the  royal  home  of  his  childhood,  he  seems  to  have 
mounted  the  throne  with  a  determination  to  make  up  the 
arrears  of  interrupted  pleasure  by  a  career  of  unrestrained 
debauchery,  the  like  of  which  had  not  been  seen  in  Eng¬ 
land  before.  The  ancient  palace  was  reeking  with  the 
filthy  atmosphere  of  the  tavern  or  viler  haunts  of  iniquity. 
Moral  opinion  was  scoffed  at,  and  national  honour  be¬ 
trayed.  The  monarch  of  that  island  which  had  more 
than  once  swayed  the  destinies  of  Europe,  sold  himself 
to  a  monarch  as  profligate,  but  prouder,  for  Charles  be¬ 
came  the  mean-spirited  pensioner  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth. 
Y7ice  was  in  riotous  possession  of  the  high  places  of  the 
land,  and  the  throne  was  the  seat  of  the  scoffer.  Look¬ 
ing  fron\  the  throne  thus  occupied,  and  begirt  with  prolli 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  AND  X  V I II.  CEN  T  U  RI ES.  221 


gates  and  wits,  Shaftesbury,  and  Buckingham,  and 
.Rochester,  the  old  age  of  Milton  is  seen  with  heightened 
sublimity.  There  was  hanging  over  the  palace,  the  capi¬ 
tal,  the  land,  a  dark  atmosphere  of  sensuality,  lurid,  at 
times,  with  such  cruelties  as  mingle  with  heartless  frivo¬ 
lity;  and  Milton  had  passed  into  that  seclusion  of  which 
it  h  s  been  grandly  said  : 

“  Milton, 

Thy  soul  was  like  a  star,  and  dwelt  apart : 

Thou  hadst  a  voice  whose  sound  was  like  the  sea — 

Pure  as  the  naked  heavens,  majestic,  free.”* 

His  varied  career  drew  to  a  solemn  ending.  He  who  in 
youth  and  early  manhood  had  given  the  freshness  of 
poetic  fervour  a  homage  to  the  best  of  England’s  nobility, 
the  Egertons  and  Spensers;  he  who  roamed  over  the  Alps 
and  Italy,  visiting  Galileo,  and  communing  with  the  friend 
of  Tasso,  and  Italian  scholars;  he  who  had  stood  by  the 
side  of  Cromwell  and  Fairfax  and  Vane,  in  their  years  of 
power, — was  now  a  lone  man  in  the  land,  all  his  strife  for 
the  commonwealth  wasted,  and  left  to  what  the  world  then 
little  heeded,  but  which  has  made  his  name  immortal.  It 
is  of  this  period  of  Milton’s  life,  that  Mr.  Hallam  has  elo¬ 
quently  spoken  in  a  passage  which  I  desire  to  quote, 
especially  for  the  sake  of  an  educational  suggestion  which 
accompanies  it : 

“  Then  the  remembrance  of  early  reading  came  over 
his  dark  and  lonely  path,  like  the  moon  emerging  from 
the  clouds.  Then  it  was  that  the  muse  was  truly  his;  not 
only  as  she  poured  her  creative  inspiration  into  his  mind, 


*  Wordsworth,  p.  213.  Am.  Ed. 
19* 


222 


LECTURE  SEVENTH. 


but  as  tlie  daughter  of  memory,  coming  with-fragments  of 
ancient  melodies,  the  voice  of  Euripides,  and  Homer,  and 
Tasso;  sounds  that  he  had  loved  in  youth,  and  treasured 
up  for  the  solace  of  his  age.  They  who,  though  not  endur¬ 
ing  the  calamity  of  Milton,  have  known  what  it  is,  when 
afar  from  books,  in  solitude  or  in  travelling,  or  in  the 
intervals  of  worldly  care,  to  feed  on  poetical  recollections, 
to  murmur  over  the  beautiful  lines  whose  cadence  has  long 
delighted  their  ear,  to  recall  the  sentiments  and  images 
which  retain  by  association  the  charm  that  early  years 
once  gave  them — they  will  feel  the  inestimable  value  of 
committing  to  the  memory,  in  the  prime  of  its  power, 
what  it  will  easily  receive  and  indelibly  retain.  I  know 
not,  indeed,  whether  an  education  that  deals  much  with 
poetry,  such  as  is  still  usual  in  England,  has  any  more 
solid  argument  among  many  in  its  favour,  than  that  it 
lays  the  foundation  of  intellectual  pleasures  at  the  other 
extreme  of  life.”* 

Such  is  the  opinion  of  one  of  the  most  judicious  minds 
of  the  day — a  mind  trained  in  the  most  exact  and  laborious 
historic  research;  and  I  quote  it  because  I  apprehend  that 
among  us  the  tendency  of  late  years  has  been  to  neglect 
this  excellent  discipline  of  the  memory,  which  enabled  our 


■*  Literature  of  Europe,  vol.  3.  p.  425.  The  late  Mr.  Gallatin  (at  the 
time  I  refer  to  more  than  eighty  years  old)  once  told  me  that  one  of  the 
purest  pleasures  and  consolations  of  his  advanced  years  was  the  recol¬ 
lection  of  his  earliest  studies,  his  Latin  and  Greek  which  he  had  learned 
at  school,  and  passages  of  the  ancient  poets,  that,  without  conscious 
etfort,  were  constantly  presenting  themselves  to  his  mind.  The  memo¬ 
ries  of  intermediate  politics,  and  finance,  and  business,  active  and  un¬ 
remitted,  were  fading  away,  but  what  he  learned  by  rote  when  a  boy 
r.ame  back  frosh  to  cheer  him.  W.  B.  R. 


jlTE  R  A  TU  R  E  OF  XVII.  AND  XVIII.  CENTURIES.  223 


elders  to  keep  that  possession  in  tlieir  minds  of  long 
passages  of  poetry,  which  astonishes  their  feebler  de¬ 
scendants. 

To  return  to  Milton :  he  whose  delight  it  had  once  been 
to  roam  through  woods,  and  over  the  green  fields,  was 
now  chained  by  blindness  to  the  sunny  porch  of  a  subur¬ 
ban  dwelling.  He  whose  heart’s  pulse  was  a  love  of  inde¬ 
pendence,  was  now  a  helpless  dependent  for  every  motion, 
for  all  communion  with  books;  every  step  of  him,  who 
had  walked  through  all  the  ways  of  life  so  firmly,  was  at 
the  mercy  of  another.  His  spirit  was  darkened,  too,  with 
disappointment  in  his  countrymen,  and  with  bitter  memo¬ 
ries  of  domestic  discords.  As  the  Comus  was  a  beautiful 
reflection  of  happy  youth,  the  Samson  Agonistes  shadows 
forth  the  gloomy  grandeur  of  the  poet’s  old  age.  In  some 
passages  there  is  the  breaking  out  of  a  bitter  agony;  but  a 
stern  magnanimity  pervades  the  poem — a  high-souled  pa¬ 
thos  befitting  the  sorrows  of  a  vanquished,  captive  giant. 
With  our  thoughts  of  the  hero  of  the  tragedy  mingle 
thoughts  of  the  poet  himself,  for  what  was  John  Milton 
in  the  degenerate  days  of  Charles  the  Second,  but  a  blind 
Samson  in  the  citadel  of  the  Philistines?  In  the  words 
the  hero  speaks,  we  seem  to  hear  the  voice  of  Milton’s  own 
spirit,  subdued  to  a  gentle  melancholy : 

“  I  feel  my  genial  spirits  droop, 

*  *  *  * 

My  race  of  glory  run,  and  race  of  shame ; 

And  I  shall  shortly  be  with  them  that  rest.” 

Before  passing  from  this  subject,  let  me  briefly  notice  the 
service  which  Milton  rendered  to  English  poetry  in  that 
short  series  of  short  poems — his  English  Sonnets,  which 


224 


LECTURE  SEVENTH. 


Doctor  Jolmson  was  disposed  to  dismiss  with  contempt.* 
Heretofore  that  form  of  verse  had  been  appropriated  almost 
exclusively  to  the  expression  of  love  or  some  tender  emo¬ 
tion;  but  Milton  showed  that  it  could  be  made  a  high 
heroic  utterance,  as  in  that  one  on  the  massacre  of  the 
Piedmontese,  which  is  a  solemn  cry  to  Heaven  for  ven¬ 
geance  that  seems  to  echo  over  the  Alps.  This  service  in 
disclosing  the  hidden  powers  of  the  sonnet  has  been  ac¬ 
knowledged  by  Wordsworth : 

“When  a  damp 

Fell  round  the  path  of  Milton,  in  his  hand 
The  Thing  became  a  trumpet,  whence  he  blew 
Soul-animating  straius — alas,  too  few  !”f 

And  Landor  has  finely  put  this  page  of  literary  history 
into  three  lines,  (so  much  can  a  few  words  do  in  a  master’s 
hand  !)  when  speaking  of  Milton,  he  says, 

“Few  his  words,  but  strong, 

And  sounding  through  all  ages  and  all  climes; 

He  caught  the  sonnet  from  the  dainty  hand 
Of  Love,  who  cried  to  lose  it;  and  he  gave  the  notes 
To  Glory.” 

Within  the  same  twelve  months  in  which  Milton  died, 
occurred  the  death  of  the  Earl  of  Clarendon,  who,  like 
Milton  in  this,  that  in  a  season  of  political  adversity  he 
sought  employment  in  letters,  gave  to  English  prose  what 
may  be  considered  the  first  of  the  great  English  his¬ 
tories — that  wondrous  portrait  gallery,  the  “History  of  the 
Rebellion.” 

To  the  English  prose  of  the  same  period  belongs  a  very 


*  “  They  deserve  not  any  particular  criticism,  for  of  the  best  it  can 
only  be  said  they  are  not  bad.’1  Life  of  Milton,  p.  234.  W.  B.  R. 
f  Wordsworth’s  Miscellaneous  Sonnets,  p.  187. 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  AND  XVIII.  CENTURIES.  225 


different  work — associated  also  with  the  calamities  of 
authors— the  “Pilgrim’s  Progress,”  the  great  sacred  prose 
fiction  of  our  literature,  which  justifies  the  title  given  to 
John  Bunyan  by  D’Israeli,  who  calls  him  “  the  Spenser 
of  the  people.”  It  is  one  of  the  few  books  which,  trans¬ 
lated  into  the  various  languages  of  Europe,  has  gained  an 
audience  as  large  as  Christendom.  In  his  own  country, 
he  caught  the  ear  of  the  people  by  using  the  people’s  own 
speech — genuine,  homely,  hearty  English — at  the  time 
when  the  language  was  becoming  vitiated,  his  simple 
rhetoric  being  as  he  describes  it  in  rude  verse  : 

“Thine  only  way. 

Before  them  all,  is  to  say  out  thy  say 
In  thine  own  native  language,  which  no  man 
Now  useth,  nor  with  ease  dissemble  can.”8 

But  the  author  who  is  most  truly  to  be  looked  on  as 
the  representative  of  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century  is  Dryden,  the  laureate  of  the  court  of  Charles 
the  Second.  That  degenerate  era  is  reflected  both  in  the 
character  of  Dryden’s  writings  and  in  their  quick-earned 
popularity.  Content  to  write  for  his  own  age  alone, 
rather  than  for  all  after-time,  a  brief  popularity  has 
been  followed  by  the  utter  neglect — a  wise  neglect — ■ 
of  a  very  large  portion  of  his  voluminous  productions. 
His  genius  did  not  raise  itself  above  his  times,  but 
dwelling  there,  a  habitation  steaming  with  a  thousand 
vices,  his  garland  and  singing-robes  were  polluted  by  the 
contagion. 

For  wellnigh  fifty  years  Dryden  was  contemporary  with 
Milton,  living  in  the  same  city  much  of  that  time,  and 

*  Quoted  in  Southey’s  Life  of  Bunyan,  prefixed  to  his  edition  of 
the  Pilgrim’s  Progress,  p.  29. 


226 


LECTURE  SEVENTH. 


iu  occasional  intercourse;  and  I  cannot  but  picture  to 
myself  how  different  might  have  been  the  career  of  the 
young  poet,  how  much  purer  and  nobler  the  issues  of  his 
imagination,  how  much  happier  and  more  genial  his  life, 
and  how  far  more  honoured  his  memory,  if,  instead  of 
setting  himself  in  sympathy  with  the  dominant  influences 
and  fashions  of  the  day,  and  serving  them,  he  had  sought 
communion  with  the  solemn  solitude  of  Milton  !  How 
noble  a  spectacle  it  would  have  been  for  after  ages  to  con¬ 
template  the  older  bard,  blind,  poor,  neglected,  and  with 
a  grieved  but  unconquered  spirit,  the  younger  poet  seated 
at  the  old  man’s  feet,  making  himself  a  partner  in  his 
fallen  fortunes,  honouring  and  cherishing  him,  and  at  the 
same  time  fortifying  his  own  heart,  and  enriching  his  own 
imagination  !  It  would  have  been  a  filial  piety,  such  as 
Milton  gladly  would  have  rendered  to  Spenser — homage 
such  as  Spenser  would  have  paid  to  Chaucer. 

But  the  soul  of  Dryden  was  not  cast  in  heroic  mould, 
nor  was  it  susceptible  of  that  purity,  and  innocence,  and 
ardour  of  affection  which  is  often  associated  with  heroism. 
Dazzled  by  the  prize  of  a  speedy  popularity,  and  losing 
sight  of  the  poet’s  high  spiritual  ministry  of  “  allaying 
the  perturbations  of  the  mind,  and  setting  the  affections 
in  right  tune,”  he  turned  to  the  base  office  of  pampering 
the  vices  of  an  adulterate  generation.  Even  when  his 
youthful  enthusiasm  was  fired  with  the  ambition  of  com¬ 
posing  an  epic  poem  on  King  Arthur  and  the  Knights  of 
the  Round  Table,  (the  same  subject  which  had  attracted 
Milton’s  young  imagination,)  the  high  design  was  swept 
from  his  thoughts  by  the  corruption  of  the  times — sacri¬ 
ficed  to  the  ignominious  thraldom  he  was  held  in  by 
patrons  who,  exacting  unworthy  service,  would  not  suffer 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  AND  XVIII.  CENTURIES.  227 


him  to  put  on  the  incorruption  of  a  great  poet’s  glory.* 
In  Walter  Scott’s  indignant  lines : 

“  Dryden,  in  immortal  strain, 

Dad  raised  the  table-round  again, 

But  that  a  ribald  king  and  court, 

Bade  him  toil  on,  to  make  them  sport; 

Demanded  for  their  niggard  pay, 

Fit  for  their  souls,  a  looser  lay. 

Licentious  satires,  song  and  play  ; 

The  world  defrauded  of  the  high  design, 

Profaned  the  God-given  strength,  and  marred  the  lofty  line.”f 

When  we  look  at.Dryden’s  vigorous  command  of  lan¬ 
guage,  in  prose  and  verse,  the  poetic  energy  in  those  de¬ 
partments  in  which  his  genius  moved  most  freely,  we  may 
well  conceive  that  a  higher  region  of  authorship  was  in  his 
reach,  had  he  united  with  intellectual  cultivation  that 
moral  discipline,  which  no  endowment  can  dispense  with, 
without  grievous  peril  to  its  powers.  In  the  following 
passage  from  his  CEdipus,  there  is  a  certain  tone  of  reflec¬ 
tion  and  imagery  which  is  not  without  resemblance  to  the 
thought  and  language  of  Shakspeare  : 


*  Dryden’s  intended  epic  was  not  a  mere  vision  of  youth,  but,  ac¬ 
cording  to  his  best  biographers,  was  in  his  mind  at  different  periods 
of  life,  though  always  deferred  by  the  low  influences  around  him.  At 
one  time,  King  Arthur  was  the  theme ;  at  another,  it  was  Edward 
the  Black  Prince  subduing  Spain.  ( Milford’s  Life,  Aldint  Poets, p.  78.) 
Milton’s  young  vision  appears  in  his  Epistle  to  Mansus: 

“  0  mihi  si  moa  sors  talem  concedat  amicum 
Phoebmos  decorasse  viros  qui  tarn  bene  norit, 

Siquando  indigenas  revocabo  in  carmina  reges, 

Arturumque  etiam  sub  terris  belhi  moventem ! 

Aut  dicam  invictse  sociali  fmdere  mensse 
Magnanimos  heroas ;  et  0  modo  spiritus  adsit 
Frangam  Saxonicas  Britonum  sub  Marte  phalanges  !”  W.  B.  R 
t  Introduction  to  Marmion.,  Canto  i.  Poetical  Works,  vol.  vii.  p.  39 


223 


LECTURE  SEVENTH. 


“  Ila  !  again  that  scream  of  woe  ! 

Thrice  have  I  heard,  thrice  since  the  morning  dawn’d, 

[t  hollow’d  loud,  as  if  my  guardian  spirit 
Called  from  some  vaulted  mansion,  ‘  QZdipua  !’ 

Or  is  it  but  the  work  of  melancholy? 

When  the  sun  sets,  shadows  that  showed  at  noon 
But  small,  appear  most  long  and  terrible ; 

So  when  we  think  fate  hovers  o’er  our  heads, 

Owls,  ravens,  crickets,  seem  the  watch  of  death ; 

Nature’s  worst  vermin  scare  her  godlike  sons. 

Echoes,  the  very  leavings  of  a  voice, 

Grow  babbling  ghosts,  and  call  us  to  our  graves : 

Each  mole-hill  thought  swells  to  a  huge  Olympus, 

While  we,  fantastic  dreamers,  heave  and  puff, 

And  sweat  with  an  imagination’s  weight; 

As  if,  like  Atlas,  with  these  mortal  shoulders 
We  could  sustain  the  burden  of  the  world.” 

That  one  fine  stanza  in  the  Ode  for  St.  Cecelia’s  Day, 
shows  what  lyric  grandeur  Dryden  might  have  at- 
tai  ned  to : 

“  What  passion  cannot  Music  raise  and  quell  ? 

When  Jubal  struck  the  chorded  shell, 

His  listening  brethren  stood  around, 

And  wondering,  on  their  faces  fell, 

To  worship  that  celestial  sound; 

Less  than  a  god  they  thought  there  could  not  dwell, 

Within  the  hollow  of  that  shell, 

That  spoke  so  sweetly  and  so  well.” 

In  no  respect  did  Dryden  more  rashly  and  fatally  aban¬ 
don  the  authority  of  his  great  predecessors,  than  in  his 
attempt  to  introduce  rhymed  tragedies.  The  introduction 
of  rhyme  into  the  dramatic  poetry  was  a  false  substitute 
for  that  exquisite  blank-verse  which,  in  the  hand  of  a 
great  master,  is  at  once  so  imaginative  and  natural,  that  it 
sounds  like  an  ordinary  speech  idealized — the  dialect  of 
daily  life  in  its  highest  perfection.  But  the  rhymed  dra- 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  AND  XVIII.  CENTURIES.  229 


matic  dialect  stood  in  no  such  near  and  truthful  relation  to 
the  realities  of  life,  as  I  may  show,  perhaps,  by  a  reference 
to  a  variety  of  language  occurring  in  Shakspeare.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  the  chief  and  best  reputation  of  Dry- 
den  lies  in  this,  that  he  enlarged  the  domain  of  English 
poetry  by  the  production  of  the  most  nervous  satire  in 
verso  that  English  literature  had  yet  known  It  has  been 
said  by  Milton,  in  one  of  his  prose  works,  that  “a  satire,  as 
it  was  born  out  of  a  tragedy,  so  ought  to  resemble  his 
parentage,  to  strike  high,  and  adventure  dangerously,  at 
the  most  eminent  vices  among  the  greatest  persons.”* 
Dryden’s  satire  had  this  merit.  It  struck  at  Buckingham. 
It  was  also  employed  on  the  unworthy  versifiers  and 
scribblers,  for  authorship  had  degenerated  to  a  low  craft, 
with  all  its  worst  enviousness  and  meanness,  in  dismal 
contrast  with  that  frank  and  hearty  intercourse  which  dis¬ 
tinguished  the  companionship  of  authors  in  an  earlier 
generation,  living  in  genial  fellowship,  and  weaving  even 
their  inspirations  together  in  partnership  that  was  a 
brotherhood. 

A  literary  life  like  Dryden’s  closed  with  an  old  age 
without  dignity  and  without  happiness — the  remnant  of 
life,  worn  out  in  his  Egyptian  bondage,  embittered  both 
by  neglect  and  the  memory  of  talents  misspent  in  the 
service  of  a  sensual  and  sordid  king  and  corrupt  cour¬ 
tiers.  There  was  nothing  of  the  grandeur  of  Milton’s  lonely 
old  age ;  but,  in  the  period  of  Dryden’s  desolation,  we 
may  trace  the  ohastening  of  adversity  in  some  strains  of  a 
higher  mood,  as  in  those  admirable  lines  in  which  he  tells 
of  his  effort  at  Christian  forbearance  when  provoked  to 


*  Milton's  Apology  for  Smectymnuus,  |  vi.  ProseWorks,  p.  88,  8  vo. 
P  20 


230 


LECTURE  SEVENTH. 


resent  and  retort.  This  passage  is  worthy  of  all  praise, 
especially  when  we  remember  his  power  of  satire,  his 
unimpaired  poetic  invective,  now  controlled  by  a  higher 
principle : 

“  If  joj'S  hereafter  must  be  purchased  here 
With  loss  of  all  that  mortals  hold  so  dear, 

Then  welcome  infamy  and  public  shame, 

And,  last,  a  long  farewell  to  worldly  fame  ! 

’Tis  said  with  ease ;  but,  oh,  how  hardly  tried 
haughty  souls  to  human  honour  tied ! 

Oh,  sharp,  convulsive  pangs  of  agonizing  pride  ! 

Down  then,  thou  rebel,  never  more  to  rise ! 

And  what  thou  didst,  and  dost  so  dearly  prize, 

That  fame,  that  darling  fame,  make  that  thy  sacrifice. 

’Tis  nothing  thou  hast  given ;  then  add  thy  tears 
For  a  long  race  of  unrepenting  years, — 

’Tis  nothing  yet,  yet  all  thou  hast  to  give  : 

Then  add  those  maybe  years  thou  hast  to  live  ; 

Yet  nothing  still :  then,  poor  and  naked,  come, 

Thy  Father  will  receive  his  unthrift,  home, 

And  thy  blest  Saviour’s  blood  discharge  the  mighty  sin.”* 

The  death  of  Dryden  took  place  in  the  year  1700,  and 
we  pass  into  the  literature  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
first  part  of  which  is  not  unfrequently  styled  the  Augustan 
age  of  Queen  Anne.  It  was  Augustan  in  that  men  of 
letters  were  basking  in  the  sunshine  of  aristocratic  pa¬ 
tronage,  and  a  courtly  refinement  succeeded  to  that  gross¬ 
ness  of  manners  and  of  speech  which  had  disgraced  society 
in  the  years  just  previous.  Writers  were  no  longer  plunging 
in  the  mire  of  that  obscenity  which  defiled  the  times  of 
Charles  the  Second ;  but  they  were  often  walking  in  the 
dry  places  of  an  infidel  philosophy.  The  religious  agita¬ 
tion  of  the  middle  of  the  previous  century  had  sunk 


*  The  Hind  and  Panther,  part  iii.  V.  1575. 


LITERATURE  0E  XVII.  AND  XVIII.  CENTURIES.  231 


down  from  the  high-wrought  power  of  fanaticism,  first, 
into  indecent  profanity,  and  then,  by  degrees,  into  a  more 
decorous,  but  cold,  self-complacent  skepticism.  Enthusi¬ 
asm  of  all  kinds  had  burned  out,  and  there  was  a  low  tone 
of  thought  and  feeling  in  church  and  state — in  the  people, 
and,  of  consequence,  in  literature.  There  was  no  great 
British  statesman — I  mean  no  genuine,  magnanimous 
statesman — from  the  time  of  Strafford,  and  Clarendon,  and 
Falkland,  and  the  great  republican  statesmen  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  down  to  a  century  later,  when  the 
first  William  Pitt,  “  the  great  Commoner,”  breathed  a 
spirit  of  magnanimity  once  more  into  British  politics. 

The  prose  literature  developed,  in  the  reign  of  Queen 
Anne,  a  new  agency  of  social  improvement  in  the  pe¬ 
riodical  literature,  destined  to  acquire  such  unbounded 
influence  in  later  times  in  the  newspaper  press  and  the 
leading  Reviews.  There  is  much  to  show  that  a  more 
correct  and  refined  tone  of  society  was  brought  about  by 
the  papers  which,  under  the  title  of  “  The  Tatler,”  from 
the  pen  of  Steele,  began  that  series  which  became  more 
famous  in  the  “  Spectator,”  and  in  connection  with  Ad¬ 
dison.  “  It  was  said  of  Socrates,”  remarked  Steele, 
“that  he  brought  philosophy  down  from  heaven  to  inhabit 
among  men.  I  shall  be  ambitious  to  have  it  said  of  me 
that  I  have  brought  philosophy  out  of  closets  and  libra¬ 
ries,  schools,  and  colleges,  to  dwell  in  clubs  and  assemblies, 
at  tea-tables,  and  in  coffee-houses.”  Not  many  years  ago, 
it  was  very  generally  the  custom,  I  remember,  for  every 
young  person,  male  and  female,  to  go  through  a  course 
of  reading  of  the  papers  of  the  Spectator.  This  has 
fallen  quite  into  disuse  now-a-days,  and  I  do  not  know 
that  it  is  much  to  be  regretted.  The  Spectator  contains, 


232 


LECTURE  SEVENTH. 


undoubtedly,  much  sensible  and  sound  morality ;  but  it 
is  not  a  very  high  order  of  Christian  ethics.  It  contains 
much  judicious  criticism,  but  certainly  riot  comparable  to 
the  deeper  philosophy  of  criticism  which  has  entered  into 
English  literature  in  the  present  century.*  Those  papers 
will  always  have  a  semi-historical  interest,  as  picturing  the 
habits  and  manners  of  the  times — a  moral  value,  as  a 
kindly,  good-natured  censorship  of  those  manners.  In 
one  respect,  the  Spectator  stands  unrivalled  to  this  day  : 
I  allude  to  the  exquisite  humour  in  those  numbers  in 
which  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  figures.  If  any  one  desire 
to  form  a  just  notion  of  what  is  meant  by  that  very  inde- 

*  Let  me,  in  other  and  better  language  than  my  own,  say  a  word 
for  our  classic.  “  It  seems  to  me,”  says  the  greatest  of  living  writers 
of  fiction  and  the  manliest  satirist  of  our  times,  “  that  when  Addison 
looks  from  the  world,  whose  weaknesses  he  describes  so  benevolently, 
up  to  the  heaven  which  shiDes  over  us  all,  I  can  hardly  fancy  a  hu¬ 
man  intellect  thrilling  with  a  purer  love  and  adoration  than  Joseph 
Addison’s.  It  seems  to  me  his  words  of  sacred  poetry  shine  like 
stars.  They  shine  out  of  a  great,  deep  calm.  When  he  turns  to  hea¬ 
ven,  a  sabbath  comes  over  that  man’s  mind,  and  his  face  lights  up 
from  it  with  a  glory  of  thanks  and  prayer.  His  sense  of  religion  stirs 
his  whole  being.  In  the  fields,  in  the  town  ;  looking  at  the  birds  in 
the  trees — at  the  children  in  the  streets;  in  the  morning  or  in  the 
moonlight;  over  his  books  in  his  own  room  ;  in  a  happy  party  at  a 
country  merry-making  or  a  town  assembly,  good-will  and  peace  to 
(Sod’s  creatures,  and  love  and  awe  of  Him  who  made  them,  fill  his 
pure  heart  and  shine  from  his  kind  face.  If  Swift’s  life  was  the 
most  wretched,  I  think  Addison’s  was  one  of  the  most  enviable. 
h.  life  prosperous  and  beautiful,  a  c-alrn  death,  an  immense  fame  and 
iffection  afterward  for  his  happy  and  spotless  name.” — Thackeray's 
Lectures  on  the  English  Humorists.  I  may  venture  to  express  the  hope 
that  the  habit  of  reading  the  Spectator  will  not  fall  into  disuse.  I 
know  no  finer  line  in  any  English  poet  than  one  of  Addison’s,  when 
,he  Moon  repeats  her  wondrous  tale 

“Nightly  to  the  listening  earth.” 


W.  B.  R. 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  AND  X  V 1 1 1.  CEN  T  U  R I  ES.  232 


finable  quality  called  “  humour,”  he  cannot  more  agree¬ 
ably  inform  himself  than  by  selecting  the  Sir  Roger  de 
Coverley  papers,  and  reading  them  in  series. 

While  Addison  was  giving  to  English  prose  that  refine¬ 
ment  which  was  verging,  perhaps,  to  somewhat  of  feeble¬ 
ness,  the  strong  hand  of  Swift — a  man  with  a  stronger 
intellect  and  a  rougher  heart — was  scattering  that  vigorous 
prose  which  touched  the  other  extreme  of  coarseness;  and 
Bolingbroke  was  giving,  in  his  statelier  and  more  elegant 
diction,  that  prose  the  study  of  which  has  by  some  of 
England’s  best  orators  been  pronounced  an  orator’s  best 
training. 

The  chief  representative  name  in  the  literature  of  the 
times  of  Queen  Anne  is  that  of  Pope.  His  rank  as  a  poet 
has  been  a  subject  of  much  dispute;  but  it  may  now,  I 
think,  be  considered  as  the  settled  judgment  of  the  most 
judicious  critics,  ardent  admirers,  too,  of  Pope’s  poetry, 
that  his  place  is  not  with  Chaucer,  Spenser,  Shakspeare, 
and  Milton,  the  poets  of  the  first  order,  but  with  Dryden, 
in  a  second  rank.  Shakspeare  alone  excepted,  perhaps 
no  English  poet  has  furnished  a  greater  amount  of  single 
lines  for  apt  and  happy  quotation,  on  account  either  of 
their  force  or  beauty.  In  the  famous  satire  on  the 
Duchess  of  Marlborough  occurs  this  passage : 

“Strange!  by  tbo  means  defeated  of  the  ends — 

By  spirit  robb’d  of  power — by  warmth,  of  friends — 

By  wealth,  of  followers  !  without  one  distress. 

Sick  of  herself  through  rerg  selfishness  ! 

Atossa,  curs’d  with  every  granted  prayer, 

Childless  with  all  her  children,  wants  an  heir* 

To  heirs  unknown  descends  the  unguarded  store, 

Or  wanders,  heaven-directed,  to  the  poor 

This  passage  furnishes  two  most  characteristic  lines ;  the 
20* 


23-4 


LECTURE  , SEVENTH. 


first  one  of  great  force — a  truth  from  the  dark  side  of  hu¬ 
manity,  the  wasting  malady  of  selfishness  : 

“  Sick  of  herself  through  very  selfishness.” 

The  other,  a  beautiful  expression  of  the  sense  of  a  good 
Providence  : 

“  Or  wanders,  heaven-directed,  to  the  poor.” 

There  is  another  description  of  lines  in  Pope,  as  favourite 
in  the  way  of  quotation  as  any :  I  mean  those  which  ex¬ 
press  in  smooth  verse  some  truism,  or  commonplace  senti¬ 
ment,  or  something  the  very  tameness  of  which  makes  it 
untrue.  What  line  has  been  quoted  so  often  ? — you  may 
see  it  even  on  tombstones — 

“An  honest  man’s  the  noblest  work  of  God.” 

Does  anybody  think  so  ?  Is  honesty  so  rare  ?  Has  it  so 
much  of  heroism  in  it,  or  so  much  of  saintliness,  that  it  is 
God’s  noblest  work  ?  Surely,  the  poet  must  have  uttered 
it  in  contempt  of  his  fellow-men — must  have  meant  it  in 
sarcasm.* 

And  here  we  may  see  what  disqualified  Pope  from  being 
the  great  moral  poet  he  aspired  to  be — from  being  a  great 
poet  of  the  first  rank.  Whatever  was  his  power  of  imagi¬ 
nation,  of  fancy,  his  command  of  language,  or  flow  of 
verse,  his  genius  had  not  that  spiritual  healthfulness 
which  is  a  characteristic  of  our  greatest  English  poets. 
There  is,  running  through  all  the  writings  of  Pope,  a  large 
vein  of  misanthropy.  It  was  his  habit  to  proclaim  con¬ 
tempt  of  the  world,  antipathy  to  his  fellow-beings,  ex¬ 
cept  a  few  choice  friends,  whom  he  clung  to  most  faith 
fully.  It  is  not  with  such  morbid  feeling  that  a  poet  can 


*  From  this  criticism  I  venture  to  note  an  earnest  dissent. 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  AND  XVIII.  CENTURIES.  233 


either  study  or  expound  human  nature.  His  ministry  is 
to  inspire  his  fellow-beings  with  high  and  happy  emotions, 
to  foster  a  just  sense  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature,  to 
make  man  lowly  wise,  to  cheer  him  amid  his  frailties,  not 
to  depress  him,  to  animate  his  heart  with  faith,  and  hope, 
and  love,  not  to  chill  and  harden  it  with  discontent  and 
hatred.  Instead  of  aggravating  all  that  is  dark  and  for¬ 
lorn  in  man’s  mingled  nature,  it  belongs  to  the  poet,  of  all 
others,  to  show  that  while  the  son  of  earth  is  lying  on  the 
earth,  lonely,  benighted,  his  head  pillowed  on  a  stone, 
thoughts  of  a  better  life,  the  soul’s  celestial  aspirations, 
are  ascending  and  descending  over  him,  like  angels  in  the 
patriarch’s  dream.  For  such,  the  poet’s  truest  ministry, 
Pope’s  temperament  was  unhappily  constituted.  In  a 
letter  to  Bishop  Atterbury — a  serious  letter  on  a  serious 
occasion — addressed  to  that  prelate  on  the  eve  of  his  exile, 
he  asks,  “What  is  every  year  of  a  wise  man’s  life  but  a 
censure  or  critic  on  the  past  ?  Those  whose  date  is  the 
shortest,  live  long  enough  to  laugh  at  one-half  of  it :  the 
boy  despises  the  infant,  the  man  the  boy,  the  philosopher 
both,  and  the  Christian  all.”*  What  could  have  been  that 
notion  of  philosophy,  what  that  notion  of  Christianity, 
which  could  make  one  of  its  attributes  contempt,  that  in¬ 
firmity  of  the  morbid  mind,  in  the  eye  of  divine  wisdom  a 
vice !  IIow  different,  too,  such  contempt  of  the  past 
periods  of  one’s  life,  from  that  deeper  wisdom  which  incul¬ 
cates  the  moral  continuity  of  our  being,  showing  how  im¬ 
portant  it  is  for  the  growth  of  our  spiritual  nature  that 
we  should  so  dwell  in  each  partition  of  our  earthly  time, 
that  we  may  move  on  from  one  to  the  other  with  happy 


*  Letter,  May  17th,  1723.  Roscoe’s  Pope,  vol.  ix.  p.  241. 


236 


LECTURE  SEVENTH. 


memories  of  the  past — with  happy  consciousness  of  its 
abiding  influences ! 

“  The  child  is  father  of  the  man  ; 

And  I  could  wish  my  days  to  be 
Bound  each  to  each  by  natural  piety^”* 

It  is  a  characteristic  view  of  human  life  which  Pope 
gives  in  such  a  passage  as  this  : 

“  Behold  the  child,  by  nature’s  kindly  law, 

Pleased  with  a  rattle,  tickled  with  a  straw; 

Some  livelier  plaything  gives  his  youth  delight, 

A  little  louder,  but  as  empty  quite; 

Scarfs,  garters,  gold,  amuse  his  riper  age, 

And  beads  and  prayer-books  are  the  toys  of  age  : 

Pleased  with  this  bauble  still,  as  that  before, 

Till  tired  he  sleeps,  and  life’s  poor  play  is  o’er.” 

The  “  rattle,”  a  “  straw,”  “  scarfs,  garters,  gold,  beads, 
and  prayer-books,”  equally  toys  and  baubles,  and  ending 
alike  in  weariness,  and  then  death  or  sleep.  What  a 
picture  of  life  !  what  a  picture  for  a  poet,  whose  duty  is 
to  dignify  and  elevate,  to  draw,  of  the  life  of  man,  who 
with  all  his  infirmities,  is  an  immortal,  gifted  with  a  soul, 
precious  in  the  sight  of  his  Creator,  and  not  unworthy 
the  awful  ransom  of  the  Redeemer’s  blood  !  A  great 
moral  poet  does  not  so  teach.  “  Life’s  poor  play  !”  Such 
is  this  didactic  poet’s  deliberate  doctrine.  The  image  is 
Shakspeare’s,  but  with  a  most  significant  difference  : 

“  Out,  out,  brief  candle  ! 

Life’s  but  a  walking  shadow;  a  poor  player, 

That  struts  and  frets  his  hour  upon  the  stage, 


*  There  may  be  noted  a  coincidence  between  these  familiar  lines  of 
Wurdsworth  and  those  of  Milton  : 

“The  childhood  shows  the  man, 

As  morning  shows  the  day.” 

Paradise  Regained,  B.  4,  v.  220.  W.  B.  R. 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  AND  X  V 1 1 1.  C  E  X  T  U  RI E  S.  23’, 


And  then  is  heard  no  more :  it  is  a  tale 
Told  by  an  idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury. 

Signifying  nothing.” 

But  mark  the  dramatic  truth,  when  you  see  what  voice 
speaks  thus;  it  is  the  utterance  of  the  agony  of  a  blood¬ 
stained  conscience,  whose  guilt  has  so  wasted  out  all  its 
humanity,  that  it  would  fain  lose  all  belief  in  life’s 
realities. 

The  sophisticated  state  of  society  in  which  Pope  lived, 
and  the  morbid  excess  of  his  critical  powers,  show  them¬ 
selves  in  his  treatment  of  womanly  character:  it  is  full 
of  querulousness,  and  sarcasm,  perverse  in  sentiment  and 
in  morals.  He  exhorts  a  female  friend 

“Not  to  quit  the  free  innocence  of  life, 

For  the  dull  glory  of  a  virtuous  wife.” 

What  a  line  for  a  poet  to  utter!  and  what  a  contrast  to 
those  bright  images  of  womanly  heroism  and  beauty 
which  the  older  poets  delighted  to  picture  in  marriage  ! 
When  Pope  begins  a  healthier  strain  in  that  sweet 
couplet — 

“  0  blest  with  temper,  whose  unclouded  ray 
Can  make  to-morrow  happy  as  to-day” — 

see  what  straightway  it  declines  to, — such  a  tribute  to 
womanly  character  as  this,  that  a  sister  can  be  unenvious 
of  a  sister’s  beauty,  and  that  a  mother  can  hear  un¬ 
aggrieved  the  love  that  is  given  to  a  daughter,  and  that  a 
wife’s  merit  is  to  win  a  way  for  her  own  will  by  a  crafty 
self-control  and  a  refined  dissimulation  : 

“  She  who  can  love  a  sister’s  charms,  or  hear 
Sighs  for  a  daughter  with  unwounded  ear; 

She  who  ne’er  answers  till  a  husband  cools, 

Or  if  she  rules  him,  never  shows  she  rules ; 


238 


LECTURE  SEVENTH. 


Charms  by  accepting,  by  submitting  sways, 

Yet  has  her  humour  most  when  she  obeys.” 

When  the  household  emotion  of  filial  piety  got  the 
better  of  the  worldly  want  of  feeling  and  the  artifices 
of  society,  Pope’s  heart  spoke  in  the  lines  alluding  to  his 
mother,  beautiful  for  their  truth  of  feeling  : 

“Oh,  friend,  may  each  domestic  bliss  be  thine! 

Be  no  unploasing  melancholy  mine  ! 

Me  let  the  tender  office  long  engage 
To  rock  the  cradle  of  declining  age  ; 

With  lenient  arts  extend  a  mother’s  breath — 

Make  languor  smile,  and  smooth  the  bed  of  death. 

Explore  the  thought,  explain  the  asking  eye, 

And  keep  at  least  one  parent  from  the  sky.” 

There  was  an  influence  over  the  mind  of  Pope,  which 
must  be  alluded  to  as  belonging  to  the  literary  history  of 
the  times :  I  refer  to  the  overshadowing  and  malignant 
influence  of  the  friendship  of  Lord  Bolingbroke — a  man 
whose  brilliant  talents  do  not  redeem  his  memory  from 
the  reproach  of  corrupt  statesmanship,  and  the  more  en¬ 
during  agency  of  evil  which  he  exercised  as  one  of  the 
leading  deistical  writers  of  the  eighteenth  century.  That 
influence  often  intercepted  the  light  of  revelation.  You 
may  see  not  unfrequeutly  playing  on  the  surface  of  Pope’s 
fancy  the  shadows  that  were  cast  by  the  restless  leaves 
of  the  poison-tree  of  a  godless  philosophy.* 


*  It  may  be  hazardous,  even  as  a  matter  of  criticism,  to  express  an 
opinion  favourable  to  Bolingbroke,  yet  no  one  can  read  a  page  of  his 
matchless  English — any  page  taken  at  random  from  that  greatest  of 
political  apologies,  the  letter  to  Wyndham — without  enthusiastic 
admiration  of  his  art  of  style,  and  without  admitting  it  to  be  the  per¬ 
fection  of  written  eloquence.  Such  is  the  opinion  of  Lord  Mahon  in 
his  excellent  delineation  of  his  character.  ( History  of  England,  vol.  ii. 
p,  27.)  Another  writer  of  our  day  says  justly  :  “The  best  test  to  use, 


ilTKll  A  rURE  OF  XVII.  AND  XVIII.  CENTURIES.  '239 


No  company  of  writers  has  sunk  into  such  general  and 
merited  oblivion  as  the  British  infidels,  who  were  the 
precursors  of  the  French  skeptics  in  the  last  century. 
We  look  back  with  somewhat  of  wonder  and  dismay  at 
the  extent  of  the  influence  they  exerted  for  a  considerable 
time  over  the  minds  of  their  countrymen  in  an  advanced 
stage  of  intellectual  refinement.  It  had  its  sway  over  the 
most  cultivated  classes  of  society,  the  court,  the  men  of 
letters,  but  happily  had  less  effect  on  what  is  less  heard 
of — the  simple  piety  which  never  died  out  in  the  quiet 
parish  churches  of  the  land,  and  was  cherished  at  many  a 
lowly  hearth.  In  the  prouder  spheres  of  society,  and  in 
literature,  deism  and  all  the  motley  mockery  of  unbelief 
had  an  almost  unresisted  power.  I  know  of  no  sadder 
sentence  in  English  literature,  than  that  in  which  Bishop 
Butler,  in  the  preface  to  his  great  defence  of  revealed 
religion,  remarks,  “It  is  come,  I  know  not  how,  to  be 
taken  for  granted  by  many  persons,  that  Christianity  is 


before  we  adopt  any  opinion  or  assertion  of  Bolingbroke’s,  is  to  con¬ 
sider  whether  in  writing  it  he  was  treating  of  Sir  Robert  Walpolo  or 
rovealed  religion.  On  other  occasions  he  may  be  followed  with 
advantage,  as  he  always  may  be  read  with  pleasure.”  Cretwy’s  Battlet 
of  the  World,  vol.  ii.  p.  158.  Surely  He  must  always  be  regarded  reve¬ 
rentially,  as  a  master  of  English  rhetoric,  whom  Burke  studied,  whose 
lost  speeches  the  younger  Pitt  mourned  as  the  greatest  loss  to  modern 
letters,  and  of  whom  a  writer  like  Chesterfield  said,  “  Till  I  read  Bo- 
lingbrokc,  I  confess  I  did  not  know  all  the  extent  and  power  of  the 
English  language.”  Bad  as  were  his  religious  opinions,  they  do  not 
seem  to  have  degenerated  to  the  low  atheistic  level  which  some  of  his 
contemporaries  reached.  “When  I  took  my  last  farewell  of  him,” 
writes  Lord  Chesterfield,  “  he  roturnod  his  last  farewell  with  tenderness, 
and  said,  ‘God,  who  placed  me  here,  will  do  what  he  pleases  with  me 
hereafter;  and  he  knows  best  wbat  to  do.  May  be  bless  you!’” 
W.  B.  R. 


240 


LECTURE  SEVENTH. 


not  so  much  as  a  subject  of  inquiry;  but  that  it  is  •.  jw, 
at  length,  discovered  to  be  fictitious.  And  accordingly 
they  treat  it  as  if,  in  the  present  age,  this  were  an  agreed 
point  among  all  people  of  discernment;  and  nothing 
remained  but  to  set  it  up  as  a  principal  subject  of  mirth 
and  ridicule,  as  it  were  by  way  of  reprisals,  for  its  having 
so  long  interrupted  the  pleasures  of  the  world.”* 

This  was  said  in  1736,  and  to  such  a  state  of  things  no 
man  contributed  more  than  Henry  St.  John,  Viscount 
Bolingbroke,  he  whom  Pope,  in  the  poem  which  professed 
to  be  his  philosophical  poem — “  The  Essay  on  Man” — has 
apostrophized  as  his  “genius,”  “master  of  the  poet  and 
the  song,”  his  “guide,  philosopher,  and  friend.” 

The  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  presents  English 
literature,  and  especially  its  poetry,  reduced  to  its  lowest 
estate.  Those  who  followed  Pope,  to  imitate  him  with¬ 
out  his  powers,  rendered  the  poetry  of  that  period  tame, 
trite,  mechanical,  and  monotonous  in  versification.  What 
the  middle  of  the  last  century  has  to  be  proud  of  is,  Dr. 
Johnson’s  colossal  work,  the  first  great  Dictionary  of  our 
language. 

The  last  half  of  the  century  is  an  era  of  the  revival  of 
English  poetry — a  revival  which  began  indeed  somewhat 
earlier  with  Thomson,  but  which  was  carried  on  by  Gray, 
and  by  Collins,  and  Goldsmith,  and  Cowper,  and  another 
whose  peasant  hand  was  a  fit  one  to  bring  poetry  back  to 
nature  again — Robert  Burns,  who  led  the  muse  into  the 
open  fields  once  more,  to  look  on  the  flowers,  and  most  of 
all,  that  one  which  “  glinted  forth”  to  delight  his  age,  as  it 
used  to  do  Chaucer’s,  four  hundred  years  before.  We  feel 


*  Advertisement  to  the  first  edition  to  Butler’s  Analogy,  p.  48. 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  AND  XVIII.  CENTURIES.  241 


that  we  are  getting  out  of  a  close  atmosphere  and  an  artificial 
light  into  the  open  air  and  sunshine  again,  when,  passing  from 
the  previous  versifiers,  we  come  to  Burns,  and  see  that  it  was 

“Mid  ‘lonely  lieights  and  hows’ 

He  paid  to  Nature,  tuneful  vows ; 

Or  wiped  his  honourable  brows 
Bedewed  with  toil, 

While  reapers  strove,  or  busy  ploughs 
Upturned  the  soil.” 

Connected  with  one  of  the  names  I  have  mentioned  as 
of  the  revivers  of  a  truer  spirit  of  English  poetry,  there  is 
an  incident  of  much  interest,  the  memory  of  which  was 
recovered  a  few  years  ago,  and  which  serves  to  mark  the 
period  of  a  favourite  poent.  The  incident  has  been  intro¬ 
duced  by  Lord  Mahon,  in  his  admirable  History  of  Eng¬ 
land,  and  I  cannot  do  better  than  use  his  words.  On  the 
night  of  the  13th  of  September,  1759,  the  night  before  the 
battle  on  the  Plains  of  Abraham  was  to  give  to  Wolfe  the 
fame  of  the  Conqueror  of  Canada,  the  English  general 
passed  along  the  St.  Lawrence,  with  a  portion  of  his  army 
in  boats ;  the  historian  proceeds :  “  Swiftly,  but  silently, 
did  the  boats  fall  down  with  the  tide,  unobserved  by  the 
enemy’s  sentinels  at  their  posts  along  the  shore.  Of 
the  soldiers  on  board,  how  eagerly  must  every  heart  have 
throbbed  at  the  coming  conflict !  how  intently  must  every 
eye  have  contemplated  the  dark  outline,  as  it  lay  pencilled 
upou  the  midnight  sky,  and  as  every  moment  it  grew 
closer  and  clearer,  of  the  hostile  heights  !  Not  a  word  was 
spoken — not  a  sound  heard  beyond  the  rippling  of  the 
stream.  Wolfe  alone — thus  tradition  has  told  us—  re¬ 
peated  in  a  low  voice  to  the  other  officers  in  his  boat  those 
beautiful  stanzas  with  which  a  country  church-yard  in 
6pired  the  muse  of  Gray.  One  noble  line 
21 


242 


LECTURE  SEVENTH. 


‘  The  paths  of  glory  lead  but  to  the  grave’ — 

must  have  seemed  at  such  a  moment  fraught  with  mourn¬ 
ful  meaning.  At  the  close  of  the  recitation,  Wolfe  added, 
‘Now,  gentlemen,  I  would  rather  be  the  author  of  that 
poem  than  take  Quebec!’  ”* 

Of  Gray,  and  Goldsmith,  and  Cowper  this  is  also  to  he 
remembered — that  they  have  enriched  the  literature  with 
prose  as  attractive  as  their  poetry.  It  would  be  hard  to 
say  in  which  respect  Goldsmith  is  most  agreeably  and 
affectionately  remembered — as  the  author  of  “  The  Deserted 
Village,”  or  of  “  The  Vicar  of  WaJceJield.”  Besides,  the 
letters  of  Gray,  our  epistolary  literature  received  its  largest 
contributions  in  these  two  collections,  equally  characteristic 
of  the  writers,  and  very  different  in  their  tone — the  letters 
of  Horace  Walpole,  covering  more  than  half  a  century, 
filled  with  political  and  private  gossip,  and  sparkling  with 
the  wit  of  an  acute  man  of  the  world,  in  the  midst  of  the 
world’s  busiest  society — and  the  letters  of  Cowper,  partly 
by  virtue  of  his  exquisite  English,  and  partly  by  the 
purity  and  earnestness  of  his  character,  and  his  gentle 
humour,  giving  a  charm  that  is  indescribable  to  the  simple 
incidents  and  occupations  of  his  secluded  life,  and  that 
places  his  letters  with  the  most  agreeable  reading  in  Eng¬ 
lish  literature.  The  historical  literature  of  the  century 
I  reserve  for  a  connection  in  which  I  propose  to  speak  of 
it  hereafter. 

In  the  revival  of  English  poetry  which  I  have  been 


*  History  of  England,  vol.  iv.  p.  163.  One  of  Mr.  Heed’s  modest 
literary  labours  was  an  American  edition,  with  notes,  of  Lord  Mahon’s 
early  volumes.  The  notes  wore  illustrative,  and  very  judicious.  Had 
bis  life  been  spared,  ho  would  probably  have  completed  tho  edition. 

W.  B.  R. 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  AND  XVIII.  CENTURIES.  243 


speaking  of,  an  auxiliary  influence  was  exerted  by  the  resto¬ 
ration  of  the  early  minstrelsy  in  Percy’s  Reliques.  That 
popular  poetry  was  made  familiar  to  reading  men,  and  its 
simple  power  helped  English  poetry  to  recover  not  only 
its  natural  graces,  but  the  best  freedom  and  variety  of  its 
music.  Cowper  caught  the  free  movement  of  verse  in  his 
well-known  comic  ballad  of  John  Gilpin,  and  not  less  in 
the  tragic  one — that  simple  and  noble  Dirge,  on  the  re¬ 
markable  casualty  of  the  sinking  of  the  Royal  George 
at  her  moorings : 

“  Toll  for  the  brave  ! 

The  brave  that  are  no  more  ! 

All  sunk  beneath  the  wave, 

Fast  by  their  native  shore  ! 

Eight  hundred  of  the  brave, 

Whose  courage  well  was  tried, 

Had  made  the  vessel  keel, 

And  laid  her  on  her  side. 

A  land-breeze  shook  the  shrouds, 

And  she  was  overset: 

Down  went  the  Royal  George, 

With  all  her  crew  complete. 

Toll  for  the  brave ! 

Brave  Ivempenfelt  is  gone; 

His  last  sea-fight  is  fought, 

His  work  of  glory  done. 

It  was  not  in  the  battle; 

No  tempest  gave  the  shock; 

She  sprang  no  fatal  leak; 

She  ran  upon  no  rock. 

His  sword  was  in  the  sheath ; 

His  fingers  held  the  pen, 

When  Kempenfelt  went  down 
With  twice  four  hundred  men 


LECTURE  SEVENT II. 


2« 


Weigh  the  vessel  up, 

Once  dreaded  by  our  foes  ! 

And  mingle  with  our  cup 
The  tear  that  England  owes. 

Her  timbers  yet  are  sound, 

And  she  may  float  again, 

Full  charged  with  England’s  thunder. 

And  plough  the  distant  main. 

But  Kempenfelt  is  gone. 

His  victories  are  o’er; 

And  he,  and  his  eight  hundred, 

Shall  plough  the  wave  no  more.” 

No  poet  of  the  last  century  did  as  much  as  Cowper  for 
the  restoration  of  the  admirable  music  of  the  then  neglect¬ 
ed  blank  verse.  AYhen  Cowper  died,  in  the  year  1800, 
exactly  one  hundred  years  after  the  death  of  Dryden, 
English  poetry  was  again  in  possession  of  all  its  varied 
endowment  of  verse.  In  a  course  of  lectures  which  I 
delivered  here  some  ten  years  ago,  I  concluded  a  lecture 
on  Cowper  by  quoting  a  poem  then  new  and  little  known 
— the  stanzas  entitled  “  Cowper  s  Grave,”  by  Elizabeth 
Browning,  then  known  by  her  maiden  name  of  Barrett.  * 
While  I  have  avoided,  as  far  as  possible,  repetitions  from 
my  former  courses,  I  am  tempted  to  repeat  the  stanzas 
now,  because  on  the  former  occasion  they  made,  as  I  have 
been  informed,  an  impression  that  was  not  lost.  The 
merit  of  the  poem  is  not  only  in  the  happy  allusions  to 
Cowper’s  character  and  career  of  checkered  cheerfulness 
and  gloom,  but  also  in  its  depth  of  passion  and  imagination. 

COWPER’S  GRAVE. 

It  is  a  place  where  poets  crowned 
May  feel  the  heart’s  decaying — 

It  is  a  place  where  happy  saints 
May  weep  amid  their  praying — 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  AND  XVIIT.  CENTURIES.  245 


Yet  let  the  grief  and  humbleness, 

As  low  as  silence,  languish  ; 

Earth  surely  now  may  give  her  calm 
To  whom  she  gave  her  anguish. 

0  poets !  from  a  maniac’s  tongue 
Was  poured  the  deathless  singing! 

0  Christians  !  at  your  cross  of  hope 
A  hopeless  hand  was  clinging! 

0  jnen  !  this  man  in  brotherhood, 

Your  weary  paths  beguiling, 

Groaned  inly  while  he  taught  you  peace, 
And  died  while  ye  were  smiling! 

And  now,  what  time  ye  all  may  read 
Through  dimming  tears  his  story — 

How  discord  on  the  music  fell, 

And  darkness  on  the  glory — 

And  how,  when,  one  by  one,  sweet  sounds 
And  wandering  lights  departed, 

He  wore  no  less  a  loving  face, 

Because  so  broken-hearted — 

He  shall  be  strong  to  sanctify 
The  poet’s  high  vocation, 

And  bow  the  meekest  Christian  down 
In  meeker  adoration  : 

Nor  ever  shall  he  be  in  praise 
By  wise  or  good  forsaken  : 

Named  softly,  as  the  household  name 
Of  one  whom  God  hath  taken. 

With  quiet  sadness,  and  no  gloom, 

I  learn  to  think  upon  him  ; 

With  meekness  that  is  gratefulness, 

To  God  whose  heaven  hath  won  him — 

Who  suffered  once  the  madness-cloud, 

To  his  own  love  to  blind  him  ; 

But  gently  led  the  blind  along 

Where  breath  and  bird  could  find  him: 

Q  21* 


LECTURE  SEVENTH. 


■uc 


And  wrought  within  his  shattered  brain 
Such  quick  poetic  senses, 

As  hills  have  language  for,  and  stars 
Harmonious  influences! 

The  pulse  of  dew  upon  the  grass 
Kept  his  within  its  number; 

And  silent  shadows  from  the  trees 
Refreshed  him  like  a  slumber. 

Wild  timid  hares  were  drawn  from  woods 
To  share  his  home  caresses, 

Uplooking  to  bis  human  eyes 
With  sylvan  tendernesses : 

The  very  world,  by  God’s  constraint, 
From  falsehood's  ways  removing, 

Its  women  and  its  men  became, 

Beside  him,  true  and  loving ! — 

But  while,  in  blindness  he  remained 
Unconscious  of  the  guiding, 

And  things  provided  came  without 
The  sweet  sense  of  providing, 

He  testified  this  solemn  truth, 

Though  frenzy-desolated — 

Nor  man  nor  nature  satisfy, 

Whom  only  God  created! 

Like  a  sick  child  that  knoweth  not 
His  mother  while  she  blesses, 

And  drops  upon  his  burning  brow 
The  coolness  of  her  kisses; 

That  turns  his  fever’d  eyes  around — 

“  My  mother!  where’s  my  mother 1”™ 
As  if  such  tender  words  and  looks 
Could  come  from  any  other ! — 

The  fever  gone,  with  leaps  of  heart 
He  sees  her  bending  o’er  him  ; 

Her  face  all  pale  from  watchful  love. 

The  unweary  love  she  bore  him ! 


LITERATURE  OF  XVII.  AND  XVIII.  CENTURIES.  247 


Thus  woke  the  poet  from  the  dream 
His  life’s  long  fever  gave  him, 

Beneath  those  deep  pathetic  Eyes, 

Which  closed  in  death  to  save  him. 

Thus  !  ob,  not  thus !  no  type  of  earth 
Could  image  that  awaking, 

Wherein  he  scarcely  heard  the  cliaunt 
Of  seraphs  round  him  breaking — 

Or  felt  the  new  immortal  throb 
Of  soul  from  body  parted ; 

But  felt  those  eyes  alone,  and  knew 
“  My  Saviour !  not  deserted  1” 

Deserted!  who  hath  dreamt  that  when 
The  cross  in  darkness  rested 
Upon  the  Victim’s  hidden  face, 

No  love  was  manifested  ? 

What  frantic  hands  outstretched  have  e’er 
The  atoning  drops  averted — 

What  tears  have  washed  them  from  the  soul — 
That  one  should  be  deserted? 

Deserted!  God  could  separate 
From  his  own  essence  rather : 

And  Adam’s  sins  have  swept  between 
Tho  righteous  Son  and  Father; 

Yea!  Once  Immanuel’s  orphaned  cry 
His  universe  hath  shaken — 

It  went  up  single,  echoless, 

“  My  God,  I  am  forsaken  !” 

It  went  up  from  the  Holy’s  lips 
Amid  his  lost  creation, 

That  of  the  lost,  no  son  should  use 
Those  words  of  desolation  ; 

That,  earth’s  worst  frenzies,  marring  hope. 
Should  mar  not  hope’s  fruition ; 

And  I,  on  Cowper’s  grave,  should  «ee 
His  rapture,  in  a  vision  1 


LECTURE  VIII.* 


literature  of  tlje  Itmdecntb  dwtarg. 

Literature  of  our  own  times — Influence  of  political  and  social  rela¬ 
tions — The  historic  relations  of  literature — Tho  French  Revolution, 
ind  its  effects — Infidelity — Thirty  years’  Peace — Scientific  progress 
coincident  with  letters — History — Its  altered  tone — Arnold — Pres¬ 
cott — Niebuhr — Gibbon — Hume — Robertson — Religious  element  in 
historical  style — Lord  Mahon — Macaulay’s  History — Historical  ro¬ 
mance — Waverley  Novels — The  pulpit — Sydney  Smith — Manning- 
Poetry  of  the  early  part  of  the  century — Bowles  and  Rogers — Camp¬ 
bell — Coleridge’s  Christabel — Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel — Scott’s 
poetry. 

In  my  last  lecture,  I  noticed  tlie  date  of  the  death  of  Cow- 
per,  in  the  year  1800,  as  conveniently  marking  the  close  of 
the  literature  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  excellence  of 
his  prose,  as  well  as  of  his  poetry,  and  his  share  in  that 
literary  revival  which  began  during  the  latter  part  of 
that  century,  make  such  a  use  of  his  name  subservient, 
in  a  reasonable  rather  than  ah  arbitrary  manner,  to  the 
purposes  of  literary  chronology.  We  pass  thence  into 
what  may  be  entitled  “  The  Literature  of  our  own 
Times,”  or,  having  nearly  completed  its  era  of  fifty  years, 
“  The  Literature  of  the  first  half  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen¬ 
tury.”  It  has  its  characteristics — distinctive  qualities, 
with  their  origin  from  within,  in  the  minds  of  those  whose 
writings  make  the  literature,  and  from  without,  in  the 
influence  exerted  on  those  minds  by  the  world’s  doings 


248 


*  January  21,  1850. 


LITERATURE  OF  XIX.  CENTURY. 


249 


and  the  world’s  condition.  In  the  study  of  literature,  it 
is  needful,  for  our  knowledge  of  it,  to  look  at  it  in  its 
relation  to  civil  and  political  history,  in  order  to  under¬ 
stand  how,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  it  takes  a  colour 
from  the  times.  The  mind  of  no  author  can  dwell  so 
aloof  from  his  generation  that  his  thoughts  and  feelings 
shall  be  above  or  beyond  outward  influences.  He  is  more 

or  less _ irJint  be.  is,  because  bp.  is  where  he  is.  These 

outward  influences  affect  genius  of  the  highest  order,  with 
this  difference,  indeed,  that  they  do  not  limit  or  control  it, 
but,  by  its  own  inborn  power,  it  carries  them  up,  idealized, 
into  the  highest  truth  for  the  perpetual  good  of  all  after 
time. 

Looking  back  to  the  early  and  distant  eras  of  English 
literature,  it  is  not  difficult  to  trace  the  relations  between 
the  literature  and  the  national  history — the  record  of 
words  and  the  record  of  actions  and  events.  The  full 
and  varied  outburst  of  poetry,  grave  and  gay,  in  Chaucer, 
becomes  a  more  intelligible  phenomenon  when  we  think 
of  it  in  association  with  the  chivalry,  the  enterprise,  and  the 
cultivation  cf  Edward  the  Third’s  long  and  glorious  reign. 
The  genius  of  Spenser  and  the  genius  of  Shakspeare 
shine  with  a  clearer  light  when  our  eyes  look  at  it 
as  issuing  from  the  Elizabethan  age — that  age  strenu¬ 
ous  with  thoughts  and  acts,  chivalrous,  philosophical, 
adventurous,  of  whose  great  men  it  might  be  said,  as 
it  was  said  of  one  of  them,  that  they  were  so  contem¬ 
plative  you  could  not  believe  them  active,  and  so  active 
you  could  not  believe  them  contemplative.  Milton’s 
great  epic  seems,  at  first  thought,  strangely  uncongenial 
to  the  immediate  period  of  its  appearance  ;  but  ceases  tc 
be  so  when  it  is  thought  of  as  engendered  in  those  years 


250 


LECTURE  E I G  II T  n. 


of  ordeal  through  which  Milton’s  mind  had  passed  in  the 
times  of  the  Civil  War,  the  Commonwealth,  and  the  Pro¬ 
tectorate.  The  age  that  Dryden  lived  in  left  a  more  un¬ 
resisted  impress  on  his  genius — the  stamp  of  a  degenerate 
and  dissolute  generation  ;  and  the  pages  of  Pope  have 
their  commentary  in  the  reflection  they  give  of  an  artificial 
and  sophisticated  state  of  society — an  age  of  wits  and  free¬ 
thinkers;  so  that  when  his  genius  rose  to  its  most  imagina¬ 
tive  strain,  it  could  not  content  itself  with  a  theme  less 
stimulant  than  the  revolting  story  of  Abelard  and  Eloisa. 

When  we  come  to  the  study  of  the  literature  of  our 
own  times,  it  is,  of  course,  more  difficult  to  trace  the  his¬ 
toric  relation  of  literature,  because  it  is  the  literature  of 
our  own  times — times  which  have  not  yet  become  a  part 
of  history.  We  stand  too  near  them — are,  indeed,  too  much 
in  them — to  see  them  clearly,  dispassionately,  to  measure 
the  prevailing  influences,  and  understand  them  justly.  We 
cannot  yet  adventure  to  speak  of  the  literature  of  this 
century  as  hereafter  they  may  do  who  shall  look  back  to 
it  from  a  distance,  when  time,  and  the  calm  judgments 
time  brings  aloDg  with  it,  shall  group  the  authors  of  these 
times  in  their  true  places ;  and  when  the  narrowness  of 
contemporary  partiality,  or,  what  is  worse,  contemporary 
prejudice,  shall  be  expanded  to  a  larger  wisdom. 

We  cannot  err  in  this,  that  the  half  century,  now 
nearly  completed,  has  been  distinguished  by  great  intel¬ 
lectual  and  imaginative  activity.  The  revival,  which  be¬ 
gan  in  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century,  was,  in  a  great 
measure,  the  reaction  from  the  overwrought  artifice  and 
formality  of  thought,  and  feeling,  and  expression  of  the 
times  that  had  gone  before.  The  hearts  of  men  began 
to  assert  once  more  their  claims  to  what  Nature  could 


LITERATURE  OF  XIX.  CENTURY. 


251 


give  them,  and  the  poets,  who  are  Nature’s  interpreters. 
Other  agencies,  besides  the  simple  power  of  reaction, 
were  at  work  on  the  European  mind,  giving  it  an  impulse 
to  break  through  old  and  contracted  conventional  re¬ 
straints,  calling  forth  freer  movements  of  thought  and 
feeling.  I  refer  especially  to  the  general  agitation 
throughout  Europe  consequent  on  the  French  Revolu¬ 
tion.  Change  was  the  condition  of  the  closing  years  of 
the  last  century.  Things  which  had  endured  for  ages 
were  perishing,  not  by  slow  gradations  of  decay,  but  by 
quick  and  unlooked-for  violence.  Time-honoured  insti¬ 
tutions  were  not  suffered  to  attain  the  limit  of  their  natu¬ 
ral  existence,  and  then  to  sink  under  the  gradual  accumu¬ 
lation  of  years,  but  were  swiftly  swept  away  by  a  new 
compulsion.  The  clenched  hand  of  prescriptive  tyranny 
was  forced  to  loose  its  grasp ;  and  if  simpler  generations 
of  men,  in  the  olden  time,  had  held  to  the  fond  belief 
that 

“Not  all  the  water  in  the  rough,  rude  sea 
Can  wash  the  balm  from  an  anointed  king,” 

men  of  the  new  times  were  ready  to  shed  the  blood  of 
king  and  queen  with  pitiless  contempt.  The  people  in 
one  of  the  central  monarchies  of  Europe  had  suddenly 
started  up,  and,  casting  away  respect  for  prerogative, 
boldly  questioned  the  authority  of  a  power  which  so  long 
had  trampled  on  them.  Men  began  to  ask  why  the  boun¬ 
ties  of  heaven  should  be  garnered  up  for  the  bloated  luxury 
of  the  few,  while  the  many  were  pining,  hungry  and 
heart-stricken  The  sympathies  of  Christendom  were,  for 
a  season,  enlisted ;  and  the  pulse  of  other  nations  began 
to  beat  quicker.  The  French  Revolution  began  to  assume 
the  aspect  of  a  general  European  revolution  Ancien* 


LECTURE  EIG  II Til. 


S52 

opinions  and  rules  of  life  were  abandoned,  and  new  modes 
of  thought  and  feeling  took  their  place.  The  political 
revolution  became  an  intellectual  and  moral  one ;  for,  so 
entire  was  the  subversion  of  old  institutions,  that  in  recon¬ 
structing  society,  men  were  led  to  speculate  on  its  very  ele¬ 
ments,  and  on  the  principles  and  destiny  of  human  nature — 
speculations  which,  from  a  revolutionary  forsaking  of  the 
old  paths,  too  often  fostered  a  self-sufficient  and  faithless 
philosophy.  It  was  not  as  in  the  American  Revolution,  in 
which  our  fathers,  not  clamorous  for  new  privileges,  were 
the  defenders  of  old  rights — rights  as  ancient  as  the  Great 
Charter,  advocates  of  the  Constitution  and  the  freedom  it 
gave,  the  “  good  old  cause.”  But  in  the  revolutionary 
agitation  that  attended  the  French  Revolution,  new  creeds 
of  liberty  were  taught,  new  doctrines  of  the  rights  of  man. 
Christianity,  with  its  day  of  sanctity  and  repose,  sacred 
from  the  Creation,  was  banished  to  make  way  for  a  sen¬ 
sual,  brutalizing  atheism,  with  its  tenth-day  holidays,  (I 
cannot  call  them  Sabbaths,)  and  with  its  idolatry  of  human 
reason.  Theories  of  ecclesiastical,  political,  and  social  re¬ 
generation  were  propagated  with  apostolic  zeal  into  all 
lands — doctrines  which  cast  a  shadow  on  the  spire  of  every 
village-church,  and  which,  while  they  gave  some  wild 
hopes  to  the  down-trodden  and  the  desperate,  struck  dis¬ 
may  where  the  domestic  virtues  were  grouped  at  the  once 
secure  and  happy  fireside.  It  was  a  commotion  of  the 
very  primal  elements  of  society.  The  scene  was  a  new 
one — suddenly  a  new  one — in  the  drama  of  civilization  : 
the  power  of  strange  rights  was  thrust  into  the  hands  of 
men ;  the  burden  of  strange  duties  was  harnessed  on  their 
backs.  Ancient  landmarks,  covered  with  the  moss  of 
many  years,  were  torn  up.  The  guidance  of  principles, 


LITERATURE  OF  XIX.  CEXTURY. 


253 


drawn  not  from  any  customary  or  conventional  authority, 
but  from  the  depths  of  human  nature,  was  needed  alike 
for  those  who  hailed  and  those  who  abhorred  the  change 
IWen  long  accustomed  to  float  on  the  placid  waters  of  a 
liver,  within  sight  and  reach  of  safe  and  smiling  shores, 
found  themselves  suddenly  driven  out  upon  a  stormy  and 
shoreless  sea;  and,  in  their  peril,  some  were  earnestly 
gazing  for  a  beacon-light  from  the  lost  coast,  others  were 
idly  gazing  at  the  flashing  fires  that  crest  the  dark  billows 
of  the  deep,  and  a  few  were  looking  upward  hopefully  for 
some  star  in  the  clouded  sky.  The  agitation  of  the  times 
carried  some  minds  into  the  delusions  of  sophistry  and 
irreverence,  but  it  also  led  others  into  deeper  moods  of 
thought  and  larger  sympathies.  Superficial  precepts, 
whether  in  government,  philosophy,  or  literature,  were  not 
enough;  but  there  was  needed  what  should  deal  with 
human  nature  with  a  deeper  and  truer  wisdom.  This  in¬ 
fluence,  either  direct  or  indirect,  extended  over  all  depart¬ 
ments  of  thought  and  action,  and  thus  made  its  impression 
on  European  literature,  on  English  literature,  for  the  per¬ 
turbation  of  the  times  stirred  the  mind  of  England,  though 
it  did  not  shake  her  ancient  constitution. 

When  I  speak  of  the  agitation  consequent  on  the 
French  Revolution,  I  include  all  that  forms  the  historic 
era,  the  revolution  itself,  the  wars  of  the  republic,  and  the 
wars  of  the  French  Empire;  in  short,  the  quarter  of  a  cen¬ 
tury  of  tumult  and  war  which  closed  in  1815  with  the  bat¬ 
tle  of  Waterloo.  It  has  been  followed  by  the  thirty  years’ 
peace,  the  lougest  period  of  tranquillity  in  modern  history 
— perhaps  I  may  say,  in  the  world’s  history.  The  increased 
activity  and  independence  of  thought  that  attended  the 
political  convulsions  of  Europe,  and  even  then  found  ex-  j 
22 


'251 


LECTURE  EIGHTH. 


pression  in  literature,  continued,  and  indeed  expanded  still 
further,  in  the  more  genial  years  of  peace  that  followed. * 
This  half  century,  in  which  our  lot  has  been  cast,  has 
been  unquestionably  one  of  great  and  varied  intellectual 
activity,  distinguished  by  achievements  in  the  two  chief 
departments  of  thought  and  inquiry,  science  and  litera¬ 
ture.  Never  perhaps  have  they  been  cultivated  in  truer 
proportion,  and  they  have  moved  forward  with  harmonious 
progress,  giving  to  mankind  the  various  elements  of  civili¬ 
zation  and  improvement  which  are  respectively  in  the 
gift  of  science  and  literature.  In  this  connection,  one 
cannot  but  feel  how  fortunate,  how  providential  it  was 
that  the  wonderful  results  of  physical  science  which  this 
century  has  witnessed  were  not  accomplished  in  the  last 
century,  at  a  time  when  a  low  state  of  religious  opinion 
was  prevailing,  when  skepticism  was  dominant  in  litera¬ 
ture  ;  for  at  such  a  time  the  victories  of  science  over  the 
powers  of  the  material  universe,  instead  of  raising  our 
sense  of  the  Creator’s  power,  and  inspiring  that  humility 
which  true  science  ever  cherishes,  the  more  deeply  at 
every  advance  it  makes — instead  of  this,  an  age  of  un¬ 
belief,  whose  literature  had  divorced  itself  from  revelation, 
would  have  been  ready  to  use  the  results  of  science  to 
decoy  men  into  that  insidious  atheism  which  substitutes 
Nature  for  God,  and  would  have  entangled  our  spiritual 
nature  in  the  meshes  of  materialism.  The  truest  culti- 


*  Since  these  words  were  written,  peace,  European  peace,  is  no 
more,  and  new  names  of  bloody  note  are  adding  to  the  catalogue  of 
modern  battles.  Alma  and  Inkermann  are  the  last  and  bloodiest. 
And  who,  in  reading  these  lectures  on  the  Poetry  and  Literature  of 
jur  language,  can  hesitate  to  give  his  sympathy  to  those  who  are 
fighting  the  battle  of  civilization  ?  W.  B.  R. 


LITERATURE  OF  XIX.  CENTURY. 


25J 


vation  of  science  and  the  truest  cultivation  of  literature 
in  our  day  have  shown  this  harmony,  that  alike  for  the 
scientific  and  the  literary  study  of  man  and  nature — for 
the  naturalist,  for  instance,  and  the  poet — there  is  needed 
the  same  spirit  of  humble,  willing,  dutiful  inquiry,  a  power 
of  recipiency  as  well  as  of  search.  The  man  of  science, 
and  the  poet  equally,  will  miss  the  truth,  if  either  the 
one  or  the  other  be  such  as  has  been  described  as  the 
man  who  “grows  to  deal  boldly  with  nature,  instead  of 
reverently  following  her  guidance;  who  seals  his  heart 
against  her  secret  influences;  who  has  a  theory  to  main¬ 
tain,  a  solution  which  shall  not  be  disturbed;  and  once 
possessed  of  this  false  cipher,  he  reads  amiss  all  the 
golden  letters  round  him.”* 

The  intellectual  activity  of  the  nineteenth  century  has 
been  displayed  in  a  very  extended  and  various  litera¬ 
ture,  in  prose  and  poetry r' and  in  literature  on  each  side 
of  the  Atlantic.  With  no  disposition  to  magnify  the 
present  at  the  expense  of  the  past,  it  may,  I  believe,  be 
safely  said,  in  an  estimate  of  the  literature  of  this  century, 
that  in  some  departments  it  has  excelled  that  of  the 
previous  centuries.  This  is  especially  the  case  in  historic 
literature,  for  never  heretofore  in  English  letters  has  there 
been  so  true  a  conception  of  an  historian’s  duties,  so  deep 
a  sense  of  the  difficulties  of  his  story,  and  at  the  same 
time  such  hopefulness  of  its  powers.  It  is  far  better 
understood  now  than  heretofore,  that  in  order  to  recon¬ 
struct  the  testimonies  of  the  past,  so  as  to  make  not  only 
a  record  but  a  picture  of  the  men  that  lived  in  the  past 


*  The  marginal  reference  in  pencil  here  is  to  Bishop  Wilberforce, 
but  I  am  unable  to  verify  it.  W.  B.  R. 


?56 


LECTURE  EIGHTH. 


and  the  events  that  belong  to  it,  the  historian  must  pos¬ 
sess  some  of  the  knowledge  of  the  statesman  and  of  the 
powers  of  the  poet  and  philosopher.  In  no  respect  has 
historical  literature  been  more  improved  than  in  the 
thorough  and  laborious  processes  of  research  which  are 
now  demanded  at  the  historian’s  hands.  Thus  various 
tracts  in  the  world’s  history,  known  formerly  with  a  sort 
of  careless  familiarity,  have  been  admirably  reclaimed  by 
the  better  cultivation,  which  is  rewarded  with  the  recovery 
of  abundant  materials  neglected  by  an  indolent  generation. 
It  is  such  dutiful  and  laborious  research,  united  with  other 
high  qualifications,  w'hich  has  placed  our  countryman,  Mr. 
Prescott,  among  the  best  historians  in  our  times. 

Nor  is  it  only  by  more  accurate  methods  of  research 
that  this  department  of  literature  is  now  distinguished. 
A  deeper  philosophy  of  history  has  entered  into  it.  The 
historic  sagacity  of  Niebuhr  may  be  considered  as  having 
led  the  way  in  those  processes  which  give  him  almost  the 
fame  of  a  discoverer,  and  which  have  been  followed  out 
in  the  history  of  antiquity  by  English  as  well  as  French 
historians;  so  that  it  maybe  said,  that  within  the  last 
twenty  years  the  whole  history  of  Greece  and  Pome  has 
been  not  only  reconstructed,  but  fashioned  into  a  more 
life-like  reality.  Hannibal’s  campaign  in  Italy,  in  the 
posthumous  volume  of  Arnold’s  History  of  Rome,  is  as 
vivid  a  narrative  as  could  be  given  of  one  of  Napoleon’s 
or  Wellington’s  campaigns. 

It  is  in  these  particulars,  laborious  and  accurate  research 
and  use  of  historical  materials,  and  in  a  better  science  of 
history,  that  the  later  writers  have  entitled  themselves  to 
a  reputation  so  much  worthier  than  that  of  the  best-known 
historians  in  the  last  century.  Of  those  historians,  Gib- 


LITERATURE  OF  XIX.  CENTURY. 


257 


bon  is  the  only  one  whose  history  preserves  to  this  day 
its  authority,  on  the  score  of  such  extensive  research  and 
deep  learning  as  were  required  by  his  large  theme.  With 
regard  to  Hume  and  Robertson,  the  two  most  popular  his¬ 
torians,  the  labours  of  later  students  of  history  have  de¬ 
monstrated  that  their  works  are  of  that  indolent  and 
superficial  character  which  destroys  their  authority  as 
trustworthy  chroniclers.  I  do  not  suppose  that  any  care¬ 
ful  and  conscientious  inquirer  after  historic  truth  would  at 
the  present  day  consider  a  question  of  history  determined  by 
a  statement  in  the  histories  of  either  Hume  or  Robertson.* 
Another  and  a  very  high  merit  may  be  claimed  for  his¬ 
tory  in  the  English  literature  of  our  times:  I  mean  the 
religious  element  which  has  been  developed  in  it,  and 
most  of  all  by  Arnold.  This  is  a  noble  contrast  to  the 
aggressive  infidelity,  and  the  low  and  false  views  attendant 
on  it,  which  vitiates  the  histories  of  Gibbon  and  Hume,  cor¬ 
rupting  the  learning  of  the  former,  and  coupling  a  positive 

*  As  this  volume  is  passing  through  the  press,  my  eye  has  been 
attracted  by  two  contemporary  criticisms,  though  from  very  different 
sources,  on  Gibbon  and  Hume;  the  one  by  Lord  John  Russell,  in  a 
recent  speech  at  Bristol,  the  other  by  Landor  in  a  poetical  contribution 
to  the  Examiner.  The  first  I  have  not  space  to  quote  or  to  refer  to, 
further  than  to  say  it  is  precisely  in  accord  with  Mr.  Reed’s  criticism. 
Of  the  other,  I  can  cite  but  a  few  lines.  Of  Gibbon  the  poet  well  says  : 

“There  are  who  blame  them  for  too  stately  step, 

And  words  resounding  from  inflated  cheek. 

Words  have  their  proper  places,  just  like  men. 

I  listen  to,  nor  venture  to  reprove, 

Large  language  swelling  under  gilded  domes — 

Byzantine,  Syrian,  Persepolitan.” 

And  he  concludes : 

“History  hath  beheld  no  pile  ascend 
So  lofty,  large,  symmetrical  as  thine.”  W.  B.  R. 

22* 


258 


LECTURE  EIGHTH. 


evil  with  the  defects  of  the  latter;  so  that  history  was  made 
a  godless,  infidel  study,  subservient  to  the,  shallow  skepti¬ 
cism  of  the  eighteenth  century.  With  minds  blinded  to 
Christian  truth,  and  tempers  alien  from  all  Christian  earn¬ 
estness,  they  looked  upon  religious  feeling  as  either  fraud 
or  superstition,  and  so  they  spoke  of  it  in  the  narrative  of 
portions  of  the  world’s  history  in  which  the  Christian 
church  was  leading  the  nations  of  Europe  to  the  truth. 

It  is  not  only  in  such  offensive,  assailant  unbelief,  as 
Gibbon’s  and  Hume’s,  that  history  has  been  in  fault,  but 
there  has  also  been  the  negative  fault  of  the  omission  of 
all  thought  of  a  providential  government  and  guidance  of 
the  nations  of  the  earth.  We  are  thus  tempted  to  draw 
too  broad  a  line  between  sacred  and  profane  history,  and 
to  fancy  that  there  was  a  providence  over  the  one  chosen 
people,  but  that  all  the  kindred  peoples  of  the  earth  were 
abandoned  to  chance,  to  fate,  to  any  thing  but  the  govern¬ 
ment  of  God.  Now  Arnold’s  great  achievement  in  his¬ 
torical  science  is,  that  in  treating  the  history  of  a  pagan 
people,  he  gives  to  his  reader  a  sense  of  a  divine  provi¬ 
dence  over  the  Roman  nation,  for  the  future  service  of 
Christian  truth,  at  the  same  time  that  this  religious  ele¬ 
ment  is  not  irreverently  obtruded  or  mingled  with  incon¬ 
gruous  subjects.  When  Hume,  in  his  History,  reaches 
the  end  of  a  splendid  era  in  the  English  annals,  he  closes 
it  with  this  meagre  reflection,  “that  the  study  of  the 
early  institutions  of  the  country  is  instructive  as  showing 
that  a  mighty  fabric  of  government  is  built  up  by  a  great 
deal  of  accident,  with  a  very  little  human  foresight  and 
wisdom.”  In  our  meek  hours  of  faith  we  are  taught  that 
not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground  without  God’s  providence; 
and  then  we  turn  to  the  infidel  history,  to  be  admonished 


LITERATURE  OF  XIX.  CENTURY. 


25f> 


that  the  “  kingly  commonwealth”  of  England,  that  has 
swayed  the  happiness  of  millions  of  human  beings,  and 
from  which  sprang  this  vast  Republic  of  the  West,  was 
“built  up  by  accident  that  there  was  a  little  human 
foresight,  and  all  the  rest  was  chance. 

When  Arnold  was  planning  his  history,  he  said,  “  My 
ighest  ambition  ...  is  to  make  my  history  the  very 
reverse  of  Gibbon  in  this  respect,  that  whereas  the  whole 
spirit  of  his  work,  from  its  low  morality,  is  hostile  to 
religion,  without  speaking  directly  against  it;  so  my 
greatest  desire  would  be,  in  my  history,  by  its  high 
morals  and  its  general  tone,  to  be  of  use  to  the  cause,  with¬ 
out  actually  bringing  it  forward.”* 

Besides  this  high  quality,  another  merit  of  recent  his¬ 
torical  literature  is,  that  it  has  modified  what  used  to  be 
called  the  “  dignity  of  history,”  and  has  blended  with  it 
move  of  the  lively  interest  of  biography.  An  excellent 
specimen  of  such  historical  composition,  an  accurate, 
calmly-tempered,  and  attractive  history,  will  be  found  in 
Lord  Mahon’s  History  of  England  during  an  important 
part  of  the  last  century. f 

In  this  department  of  literature  the  greatest  power  of 
attraction  has  been  proved  in  the  first  volumes  of  Mr. 
Macaulay’s  History  of  England,  for  they  have  won  a  far 
larger  number  of  readers,  it  is  believed,  than  did  anyone 
of  the  Waverley  novels  in  Scott’s  palmiest  day.  Such 

*  Life  and  Correspondence,  p.  139,  Am.  ed. 

f  There  is  no  work  that  can  be  more  safely  put  in  the  hands  of 
the  American  historical  student  than  Lord  Mahon’s,  not  only  for  its 
tolerant  and  philosophic  views  of  English  affairs,  but  as  enabling  a 
reasonable  American  to  feel  and  understand  how  his  own  history 
appears  to  a  generous  and  friendly  foreign  observer.  Such  a  process 
is  very  salutary  in  this  self-complacent  meridian*  W.  B.  R. 


260 


LECTURE  E  IG  II T IX. 


rapid  and  wide-spread  popularity  is  proof  of  power,  the 
measure  of  which  will  be  taken  more  accurately  after  the 
lapse  of  some  years  than  now,  when  it  is  new  to  us.  Mr. 
Macaulay’s  aim,  as  an  historian,  is  to  bring  into  history  a 
greater  number  and  variety  of  the  testimonies  of  the  life  of 
the  past  than  history  has  been  in  the  habit  of  taking  cogni¬ 
zance  of.  With  great  powers  of  accumulating  such  mul¬ 
tifarious  memorials  of  former  times,  with  a  dexterous  skill 
in  combining  them,  and  with  a  brilliant,  effective  style, 
lie  has  gained  such  applause  as,  perhaps,  was  never  given 
to  historian  before.  It  is  most  attractive  and  exciting 
reading — the  more  delightful,  if  you  can  lull  to  sleep  all 
questioning  of  truthfulness,  and  can  bring  your  mind  to 
a  passive,  submissive  recipiency  of  Mr.  Macaulay’s  abso¬ 
lute  and  contemptuous  condemnation  of  characters  you 
might  otherwise  have  been  inclined  to  honour  or  respect 
There  are  few  writers  who  exact  from  the  reader  such 
unquestioning  obedience — obedience,  too,  to  sarcasm  and 
scorn.  It  has  been  justly  said  that  an  historian’s  fifst  “  great 
qualification  is  an  earnest  craving  after  truth,  and  utter 
impatience,  not  of  falsehood  merely,  but  of  error.”*  I 
would  ask  any  reader  of  this  work,  even  with  the  fresh 
fascination  on  him,  whether,  on  closing  the  volumes,  he 
feels  an  assurance  of  the  presence  there  of  such  an  earnest 
craving  after  truth.  Mr.  Macaulay  has  another  ambition, 
fostered,  peihaps,  by  his  habit  of  writing  as  a  reviewer,  and 
not  yet  duly  disciplined  in  him — the  ambition,  or,  as  it 
may  be  more  fitly  called,  the  vanity  of  showy  and  startling 
display.  Of  the  majestic  beauty  of  quiet  and  simple 
truth  he  seems  to  have  no  conception.  Ilis  moral  and 
intellectual  nature  seem  not  to  be  justly  balanced.  This 

*■  Arnold’s  Lectures  on  Modern  History,  p.  293. 


LITERATCRK  OF  XIX.  CENTURY. 


2S1 


appears  in  another  form  of  intellectual  pride — an  absence 
of  all  genial  appreciation  of  lofty  character — heroic  or 
saintly — an  unbelief  in  high  and  earnest  moods  of 
thought  and  feeling,  and  a  pride  of  power  in  despoiling 
men  of  the  sentiments  of  reverence  and  admiration  they 
had  been  glad  to  bestow.  The  more  habitual  those  senti¬ 
ments  have  been,  the  greater  the  power  displayed  in  scat¬ 
tering  them.  If  Mr.  Macaulay  should  carry  his  history  on 
to  that  period  when  it  will  be  necessary  for  him  to  treat  of 
what  he  has  not  as  yet  thought  it  worth  while  to  allude 
to,  colonial  America,  as  part  of  England’s  history,  and 
when  he  will  have  occasion  to  speak  of  Washington  and 
Franklin,  I  venture  to  predict  that  the  temptation  to  bid 
the  world  abate  their  admiration  will  be  irresistible ;  and 
that  then  some  of  Mr.  Macaulay’s  American  admirers, 
who  are  now  rather  intolerant  of  the  least  dissent,  will 
fain  recall  some  of  their  present  praises. 

It  is  an  easy  transition  from  the  historical  literature  to 
another  department,  scarce  separable  from  it,  and  in 
which,  also,  this  century  is  entitled  to  a  pre-eminence. 
I  refer  to  the  “  historic  romance,”  especially  as  developed 
in  the  Waverley  novels.  Scott  may  be  said  to  have  cre¬ 
ated  this  new  department  of  English  letters.  Never  has 
the  true  idea  of  historic  fiction  been  more  happily  seized 
— the  calling  up,  in  a  living  array,  not  merely  the  names, 
but  the  character,  the  manners,  the  thoughts  and  passions 
of  past  ages.  Two  of  the  finest  historical  minds  of  our 
times,  Arnold  in  England  and  Thierry  in  France,  have 
expressed  their  high  admiration  of  Scott’s  remarkable  his¬ 
toric  sagacity.  With  studious  and  laborious  habits  of  re¬ 
search,  he  had  large-hearted  sjmpathies,  an  acute  instinct 

of  historic  truth,  and,  above  all,  the  truthful  creative 
It 


262 


LECTURE  EIGHTH. 


power  of  imagination ;  wliich  powers  combined,  enabled  him 
to  achieve  in  prose  literature  what  Shakspeare,  with  like  ori¬ 
ginality,  had  accomplished  in  historical  poetry,  by  his  chro¬ 
nicle  plays  and  the  tragedies  of  Greek  and  Roman  story. 

Apart  from  their  historical  value,  the  Waverley  Series 
raised  a  far  higher  and  truer  standard  of  novel  writing 
than  had  been  known  before;  giving,  instead  of  the  vapid 
sentimentalism  and  the  romantic  extravagance  and  folly 
which  had  been  in  fashion,  good  sense  and  genuine  feel¬ 
ing,  humanity’s  true  character,  with  its  passions,  its  weak¬ 
nesses,  its  virtues,  and  its  heroism,  and  a  company  of  life¬ 
like  impersonations  of  womanly  character,  from  the  throne 
to  the  cottage.  The  services  Scott  did  would  be  better 
appreciated  by  comparison  with  the  common  run  of  novels 
in  vogue  some  forty  or  fifty  years  ago,  which  Charles 
Lamb  has  described  as  “  those  scanty  intellectual  viands 
of  the  whole  female  reading  public,  till  a  happier  genius 
arose  and  expelled  forever  the  innutritious  phantoms 
in  which  the  brain  was  ‘  betossed,’  the  memory  puz¬ 
zled,  the  sense  of  when  and  where  confounded  among 
the  improbable  events,  the  incoherent  incidents,  the  in¬ 
consistent  characters,  or  no  characters,  of  some  third-rate 
love  intrigue ;  .  .  .  persons  neither  of  this  world  nor  of 
any  other  conceivable  one ;  an  endless  string  of  activities 
without  purpose,  of  purposes  destitute  of  motive.”* 

This  description  of  novels  ceased  to  be  tolerable  to  the 
improved  taste  which  Scott  created,  and  the  effect  of 
which  was  immediate  and  mauifest.  There  is  perhaps 
reason  to  apprehend  that  the  good  influence  has  begun 
to  wear  away,  and  that  another  revolution  in  novel 


*  Essay  on  the  Sanity  of  True  Genius.  Prose  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  81. 


LITERATURE  OF  XIX.  CEXTURY. 


26o 


literature  is  going  on — an  appetite  for  more  stimulant 
fiction  being  fostered,  partly  by  corrupt  foreign  influences, 
and  also  by  the  craving  for  something  more  exciting  than 
a  just  and  pure  imagination  gives. 

The  literature  of  our  times  has  been  very  abundant  and 
often  excellent  in  a  variety  of  miscellaneous  prose  litera¬ 
ture.  In  pulpit  oratory,  voices  have  been  heard  that 
bring  back  the  sound  of  the  sacred  eloquence  of  England 
in  the  age  of  her  great  divines. 

Looking  to  our  English  prose  as  an  instrument  of 
expression,  it  may  be  said  to  have  been  brought  in  our 
times  to  a  high  state  of  excellence,  for  in  our  con¬ 
temporary  literature  it  is  possible  to  find  passages — charac¬ 
teristic  passages — which  bear  comparison  with  the  best 
English  prose  of  any  former  period,  combining  indeed 
with  the  merits  of  the  earlier  prose  new  powers  suited  to 
the  new  uses  that  the  progress  of  a  people’s  mind  de¬ 
mands.  A  high  order  of  excellence  of  English  prose, 
both  as  to  the  choice  of  words,  the  structure  and  the 
rhythm  of  the  sentences,  is  a  much  rarer  attainment  than 
people  are  apt  to  suppose.  It  is  of  such  high  excellence 
that  I  speak,  when  I  say  that  in  our  contemporary  liters 
ture  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  prose  of  Arnold,  of  Southey, 
of  Sydney  Smith,  and  of  Byron,  and  Landor,  and  in  the 
sermons  of  Manning.  A  high  authority  in  English 
philology  places  the  prose  of  Landor  as  first  among 
living  authors; — the  prose  in  the  “Imaginary  Conversa¬ 
tions,”  a  work  of  great  but  very  unequal  merit,  and  also 
in  some  smaller  productions. 

The  poetic  literature  of  this  half  century  has  displayed 
an  abundance  that  proves  an  imaginative  activity  equal 
to  the  intellectual  activity  of  our  times.  We  are  apt 


2frl 


LECTURE  EIGnin. 


sometimes  to  yield  to  the  notion  that  our  modern  days 
are  unpoetic,  and  that  the  sphere  of  imagination  has  been 
contracted  by  the  influences  of  later  times.  But  when 
this  half  century  shall  be  looked  back  to  from  a  distance, 
the  judgment  of  posterity  cannot  but  be  that  it  was  dis¬ 
tinguished  by  great  poetic  fertility  and  power — a  period 
that  has  produced  many  elaborate  poems  of  a  high  order, 
and  a  large  amount  of  such  minor  poetry,  as  may  be  seen, 
when  such  poetry  is  good,  shining  in  modest  beauty  in 
the  same  sky  with  the  larger  luminaries.  Considering 
the  number  of  poets  who  have  been  successful  in  their 
appropriate  spheres,  the  amount,  the  variety,  and  the 
merit  of  the  poetry  which  the  nineteenth  century  has 
already  given  to  English  literature,  it  may  be  more  fitly 
compared  with  the  Elizabethan  age,  rich  as  it  was  in  the 
company  of  poets,  than  with  any  other  period  of  our  lan¬ 
guage.  Indeed  it  may  be  added,  that  one  cause  of  literary 
power  in  our  times  is  to  be  discovered  in  this,  that  never  be¬ 
fore  has  there  been  such  dutiful  zeal  for  the  revival  and  re¬ 
storation  of  the  elder  literature ;  never  before  has  that  litera¬ 
ture  been  so  carefully  and  reverently  studied.  The  best 
criticism  on  Shakspeare,  on  Spenser,  on  Milton,  is  that 
which  this  century  has  produced;  and  within  the  same 
time  has  there  been  the  most  earnest  desire  to  promote 
the  study  of  Bacon  and  the  great  divines. 

In  attempting  to  group,  with  reference  to  time,  the 
poets  of  the  present  century — the  poets  of  our  own  times — 
some  curious  considerations  at  once  present  themselves. 
It  is  now  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  since  the 
death  of  Byron  and  of  Shelley,  both  poets  of  a  younger 
generation  than  Wordsworth;  and  we  begin  to  think  of 
them  as  belonging  to  past  times,  while  the  elder  poet  sur- 


LITERATURE  OF  XIX.  CENTURY. 


285 


vives,  now  in  his  eightieth  year.  But  what  is  more 
remarkable,  there  are  living  two  poets,  who  were  known 
as  poets  when  Wordsworth  was  a  youth — Bowles  and 
Rogers,  each  on  the  verge  of  fourscore  and  ten.  It  seems 
scarcely  credible  that  there  should  be  living  now  a  poet 
(I  refer  to  Mr.  Rogers)  whose  first  poem  was  published 
sixty-four  years  ago,  in  1786,  fourteen  years  before  the 
death  of  Cowper,  (whom  he  has  survived  half  a  century,) 
and  within  a  twelvemonth  after  the  publication  of  the 
Task.*  A  subsequent  poem  of  Rogers,  “  The  Pleasures 
of  Memory,”  a  subject  of  universal  interest  agreeably 
presented,  established  his  reputation,  and  was  no  doubt 
the  prompting  of  Campbell’s  poem  on  “  Hope.”  Rogers’ 
higher  poetic  power  is,  however,  to  be  found  in  a  later 
work,  which,  appearing  at  a  time  when  new  poets  had 
gained  the  public  ear,  never  attained  the  same  popularity 
as  his  earlier  poem,  which  was  more  fortunate  in  its  time. 
Prom  the  poem — I  allude  to  the  “  Italy” — I  am  tempted  to 
cite  one  passage  for  the  sake  of  the  fine  picture  it  gives 
of  an  occurence  of  which  I  made  a  passing  mention  in  a 
former  lecture — the  interview  of  Galileo  and  Milton: 

“  Nearer  we  hail 

Thy  sunny  slope,  Arcetri,  sung  of  old 
For  its  green  vine,  dearer  to  me,  to  most, 

As  dwelt  on  by  that  great  astronomer, 

Seven  years  a  prisoner  at  the  city-gate; 

Let  in  but  in  his  grave-clothes.  Sacred  be 
His  cottage,  (justly  was  it  called  the  Jewel,) 

Sacred  the  vineyard,  where  while  yet  his  sight 
Glimmer’d,  at  blush  of  dawn,  he  dress’d  his  vines, 

Chaunting  aloud  in  gayety  of  heart 


*  This  was  written  in  1850,  and  now,  in  1855,  this  aged  poet  still 
lives,  the  survivor  of  him  who  thus  spoke  of  him.  W.  B.  11 
23 


266 


LECTURE  EIGHTH. 


Some  verse  of  Ariosto.  There,  unseen, 

In  manly  beauty,  Milton  stood  before  him. 

Gazing  with  reverent  awe,  Milton  his  guest. 

Just  then  come  forth,  all  life  and  enterprise ; 

He  in  his  old  age  and  extremity, 

Blind,  at  noonday  exploring  with  his  staff. 

His  eyes  upturned  as  to  the  golden  sun, 

His  eyeballs  idly  rolling.  Little  then 
Did  Galileo  think  whom  he  bade  welcome. 

That  in  his  hand  he  held  the  hand  of  one 

Who  could  requite  him,  who  would  spread  his  name 

O’er  lands  and  seas;  great  as  himself,  nay  greater: 

Milton,  as  little,  that  in  him  he  saw, 

As  in  a  glass,  what  he  himself  should  be; 

Destined  so  soon  to  fall  on  evil  days 

And  evil  tongues  ;  so  soon,  alas  !  to  live 

In  darkness,  and  with  dangers  compassed  round, 

And  solitude.”'* 

Of  the  other  aged  poet,  William  Lisle  Bowles,  who  has 
survived  so  many  of  his  brother  bards,  I  can  only  remark, 
m  so  cursory  a  survey  of  the  contemporary  literature  as 
this  must  be,  that  Coleridge  acknowledged  a  deep  obliga¬ 
tion  to  his  poems — a  tribute  which  in  itself  is  proof  of 
some  beauty  and  power  in  them. 

The  most  decided  and  marked  influence  of  a  contem¬ 
porary  production  is  that  which  is  known  to  have  been 
exerted  by  Coleridge’s  Christabel — an  influence  that  may 
be  traced  on  the  genius  of  Scott,  Shelley,  and  Byron.  It 
was  an  influence  that  Scott  acknowledged  with  all  his 
characteristic  frankness,  and  Byron  too,  though  with  more 
reserve,  for  it  was  not  his  habit  to  acknowledge  or  per¬ 
haps  to  recognise  such  influences.  “  Christabel”  was 
circulated  in  manuscript  many  years  before  it  was  pub- 


*  Italy,  p.  115. 


LITERATURE  OF  XIX.  CENTURY. 


2CT 


lisbed;  and,  recited  among  the  poets,  it  made,  especially  on 
their  minds,  an  impression  that  proved  an  agency  of 
poetic  inspiration  to  them.  Mr.  Lockhart  tells  us  that 
the  casual  recitation  of  “  Christabel”  in  Scott’s  presence 
so  “  fixed  the  music  of  that  noble  fragment  in  his  memory,” 
that  it  prompted  the  production  of  the  “  Lay  of  the  Last 
Minstrel.”*  It  was  a  great  lesson  to  the  poets,  in  that  it 
disclosed  an  unknown,  or  at  least  forgotten,  freedom  and 
power  in  English  versification — a  music  the  echoes  of 
which  are  to  be  heard  in  the  poems  both  of  Scott  and 
Ilyron.  The  grandeur  of  its  imagery,  too,  moved  the  poets 
to  whom  it  was  made  known,  as  in  that  sublime  and 
familiar  passage  on  a  broken  friendship : 

“They  stood  aloof,  the  scars  remaining, 

Like  cliffs  which  had  been  rent  asunder; 

A  dreary  sea  now  flows  between  ; 

But  neither  heat,  nor  frost,  nor  thunder, 

Shall  wholly  do  away,  I  ween, 

The  marks  of  that  which  once  hath  been.” 

“Christabel”  proved  its  influence  over  the  poetry  that 
followed,  by  the  power  with  which  both  the  natural  and 
the  supernatural  were  imaged  in  it ;  in  the  latter  respect, 
particularly,  Scott  felt  the  power  of  the  poem.  There  is 
probably  nothing  finer  of  its  kind  in  poetry  than  those 
passages  which  tell  of  the  wicked  might  of  witchcraft  in 
the  03'c  of  the  witch,  who  has  assumed  a  beautiful  human 
form :  it  is  first  felt  as  Christabel  passes  with  her  by  the 
nearly  extinct  embers  on  the  hall-hearth: 

“They  passed  the  hall  that  echoes  still, 

Pass  as  lightly  as  you  will ! 

The  brands  were  flat,  the  brands  were  dying. 

Amid  their  own  white  ashes  lying; 


Lockhart’s  Scott,  vol.  ii.  p.  210. 


268 


LECTURE  EIGHTH. 


But  when  the  laily  passed,  there  came 
A  tongue  of  light,  a  lit  of  flame; 

And  Christabel  saw  the  lady’s  eye, 

And  nothing  else  saw  she  thereby, 

Save  the  boss  of  the  shield  of  Sir  Leoline  tall, 

Which  hung  in  a  murky  old  niche  in  the  wall.” 

Aud  in  that  other  passage,  which  shows  the  magic 
might  of  witchcraft  in  the  witch’s  eye  as  she  fascinatei 
her  mute  victim  with  it,  the  shrinking  up  of  the  eye 
the  sudden  dilation  again  when  the  look  of  innocence 
is  counterfeited  once  more,  and  Christabel’s  unconscious 
imitation  of  the  serpent-look  that  fascinated  and  appalleC 
her : 

“A  snake’s  small  eye  blinks  dull  and  shy, 

And  the  lady’s  eyes  they  shrunk  in  her  head — 

Each  shrunk  up  to  a  serpent’s  eye; 

And  with  somewhat  of  malice,  and  more  of  dread, 

At  Christabel  she  looked  askance  ! 

One  moment — and  the  sight  was  fled  ! 

But  Christabel  in  dizzy  trance, 

Stumbling  on  the  unsteady  ground; 

Shuddered  aloud,  with  a  hissing  sound. 

And  Geraldine  again  turned  round ; 

And  like  a  thing  that  sought  relief, 

Full  of  wonder  and  full  of  grief, 

She  rolled  her  large  bright  eyes  divine 
Wildly  on  Sir  Leoline. 

The  maid,  alas!  her  thoughts  are  gone; 

She  nothing  sees — no  sight  but  one  ! 

The  maid  devoid  of  guile  and  sin, 

I  know  not  how,  in  fearful  wise, 

So  deeply  had  she  drunken  in 

That  look,  those  shrunken  serpent  eyes, 

That  all  her  features  were  resigned 
To  this  sole  image  in  her  mind; 

And  passively  did  imitate 

That  look  of  dull  and  treacherous  hate  ! 


LITERATURE  OF  XIX.  CENTURY. 


269 


And  thus  she  stood,  in  dizzy  trance, 

Still  picturing  that  look  askance 
With  forced,  unconscious  sympathy. 

Full  before  her  father’s  view, 

As  far  as  such  a  look  could  be 
In  eyes  so  innocent  and  blue  ! 

And  when  the  trance  was  o’er,  the  maid 
Paused  awhile,  and  inly  prayed : 

Then  falling  at  the  Baron’s  feet, 

‘  By  my  Mother's  soul  do  I  entreat 
That  thou  this  woman  send  away !’ 

She  said  :  and  more  she  could  not  say ; 

For  what  she  knew  she  could  not  tell, 

O'ermastered  by  the  magic  spell.” 

It  is  that  description  of  the  serpent-look  of  the  witch’s 
eyes  that,  being  read  in  a  company  at  Lord  Byron’s,  so 
affected  Shelley’s  sensitive  fancy  that  he  fainted.* 

Along  with  the  influence  of  this  poem  on  the  imagina¬ 
tion  of  Walter  Scott,  there  was  blended  the  influence  of 
his  long-cherished  and  studious  culture  of  the  early 
minstrelsy,  for  which  he  laboured  with  patriotic  as  well 
as  poetic  zeal.  The  genius  of  Scott,  thus  wrought  on, 
produced  that  series  of  poems  which  tills  a  large  space  in 
the  poetic  literature  of  the  early  part  of  this  century. 
With  much  of  Homeric  animation,  and  with  the  pathos 
of  Greek  and  British  minstrel  combined,  he  sung  of  the 
chivalry  and  the  rude  heroism  of  the  olden  time ;  and  to 
those  heroic  lays  there  was  given  a  popularity  which  was 
dimmed  only  by  the  sudden  splendour  of  the  speedy  and 


*  In  Moore’s  Life  of  Byron,  vol.  iv.  p.  147,  is  the  anecdote  which  1 
presume  is  referred  to.  Lord  Byron  was  most  earnest  in  his  admira¬ 
tion  of  Christabel.  Ilis  correspondence  is  full  of  it.  “  I  won’t  have 
any  one,”  he  writes  to  Mr.  Murray  in  1816,  “sneer  at  Clmstabel ;  it  is 
a  fine,  wild  poem.”  W.  B.  R. 


23* 


2ro 


LECTURE  EIGHTH. 


more  fervid  popularity  which  was  won  by  the  genius  of 
Byron. 

There  is  nothing  in  literary  biography  finer  than  the 
composure,  the  magnanimity  (rather  let  me  call  it)  with 
which  Scott,  making  up  his  mind  that  he  was  about  to  be 
supplanted  in  popular  favour  by  a  greater  poet,  tranquilly 
turned  his  genius  to  a  new  department  of  invention,  in 
which,  as  it  proved,  no  rival  was  to  reach  him.  There  is 
truth,  too,  in  what  Scott’s  biographer  has  said  of  this 
part  of  his  career,  that,  “  Appreciating,  as  a  man  of  his 
talents  could  hardly  fail  to  do,  the  splendidly  original 
glow  and  depth  of  Childe  Harold,  Scott  always  appeared 
to  me  quite  blind  to  the  fact,  that  in  the  Giaour,  in  the 
Bride  of  Abydos,  in  Parisina,  and,  indeed,  in  all  his 
early  serious  narratives,  Byron  owed  at  least  half  his 
success  to  clever,  though  perhaps  unconscious,  imitation 
of  Scott,  and  no  trivial  share  of  the  rest  to  the  lavish  use 
of  materials  which  Scott  never  employed,  only  because 
his  genius  was,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his 
career,  under  the  guidance  of  high  and  chivalrous  feelings 
of  moral  rectitude.”* 

This  last  remark  recalls  the  account  given  of  a  conver¬ 
sation  of  Scott,  toward  the  close  of  his  life,  which  may 
be  mentioned  before  I  pass  to  the  name  of  Byron.  Not 
long  before  Sir  Walter’s  death,  a  friend  remarked  to  him 
that  he  must  derive  consolation  from  the  reflection  that 
his  popularity  was  not  owing  to  works  which,  in  his  latter 
moments,  he  might  wish  recalled.  Scott  remained  silent 
for  a  moment,  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground.  “When 
he  raised  them,”  says  the  narrator,  “  as  he  shook  me  by 


*  Lockhart’s  Scott,  vol.  v.  p.  31. 


LITERATURE  OF  XIX.  CENTURY. 


271 


the  hand,  I  perceived  the  light-blue  eye  sparkling  with 
unusual  moisture ;  he  added,  1 1  am  drawing  near  the 
close  of  my  career.  I  have  been,  perhaps,  the  most 
voluminous  author  of  the  day,  and  it  is  a  comfort  to  me 
to  think  that  I  have  tried  to  unsettle  no  man’s  faith,  to 
corrupt  no  man’s  principle,  and  that  I  have  written 
nothing  which,  on  my  death-bed,  I  should  wish  blotted.”* 
In  this  utterance  of  dignified  self-complacency,  he  stands 
justified  by  the  story  of  his  wondrous  authorship.  With 
regard  to  Scott’s  poetry,  there  are  indications  that,  in  the 
calmer  judgment  of  posterity,  the  world  is  willing  to  re¬ 
store  a  part,  at  least,  of  the  fame  it  too  quickly  took  away. 
It  is  only  the  other  day  that  Landor,  ranking  Scott’s 
poems  with  the  classics,  has  said, 

“The  trumpet-blast  of  Marmion  never  shook 
The  walls  of  God-built  Ilion ;  yet  what  shout 
Of  the  Achaians  swells  the  heart  so  high  1” 

In  the  concluding  lecture  I  propose  to  proceed  with 
the  general  considerations  of  the  literature  of  this  cen¬ 
tury— its  chief  productions  and  influences  ;  among  which 
I  desire  to  speak  of  the  character  and  influence  of  Lord 
Byron’s  poetry,  the  prose  and  poetry  of  Southey,  the 
poetry  of  Wordsworth,  the  influence  of  Mr.  Carlyle’s 
writings,  and  also  of  some  of  the  women  who,  both  in 
prose  and  poetry,  have  adorned  the  literature  of  our  times 


*  Lockhart’s  Scott,  vol.  x  p  196. 


LECTURE  IX. 


Conlemporarg  |T iteratnrc.* 

Lord  By  rim — His  popularity  and  its  decline — His  power  of  simple,  vigor¬ 
ous  language — Childe  Harold— The  Dying  Gladiator — The  Isles  of 
Greece — Contrast  of  Byron’s  and  Shakspoare’s  creations — Miss  Bar¬ 
rett — Miss  Kemble's  sonnet — Byron  as  a  poet  of  nature — His  an¬ 
tagonism  to  Divine  Truth — The  Dream,  the  most  faultless  of  his 
poems — Don  Juan — Shelley — Leigh  Hunt’s  remarks  on — Carlyle 
— His  earnestness — Southey — His  historical  works — Thalaba — 
Wordsworth — His  characteristics — Female  authors — Joanna  Baillie 
— Miss  Edgeworth — Mrs.  Kemble — Mrs.  Norton — Miss  Barrett — 
Cry  of  the  children,  &c. 

In  bringing  this  course  of  lectures  toward  a  conclusion, 
I  shall  resume  the  cursory  view  of  the  contemporary 
English  literature  which  I  began  in  the  last  lecture. 
When  the  literary  history  of  this  period  shall  hereafter 
come  to  be  written,  a  voluminous  chapter  will  be  needed 
for  what  the  English  language  has  given  expression  to 
within  it.  During  the  first  quarter  of  this  century,  the 
writings  of  Lord  Byron  had  the  most  high-wrought  and 
wide-spread  celebrity.  His  was  the  commanding  name 
of  the  day  for  some  ten  or  twelve  years  in  the  first  quar¬ 
ter  of  this  century.  Scott,  as  a  poet,  calmly  withdrew  at 
the  approach  of  the  new  influence.  He  had  probably 
exhausted  that  fine,  but  not  very  deep,  vein  of  poetry, 
which  gained  him  a  quick  popularity  and  a  permanent 
place  among  English  poets ;  he  withdrew  from  the  region 


*  Thursday,  February  28,  1850. 
272 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


273 


of  verse  to  pass  into  those  unexplored  spaces  of  the  ima¬ 
gination  in  which  he  was  to  establish  his  chief  fame  as 
the  great  writer  of  historical  romance. 

The  popularity  of  Byron,  take  it  for  all  in  all,  was  pro¬ 
bably  the  most  splendid  that  ever  poet  was  applauded 
and  flattered  with.  His  song  had  larger  audience  over 
the  earth,  and  on  that  audience  it  exerted  an  unwonted 
fascination,  swaying  the  feelings  of  multitudes,  and  mak¬ 
ing  its  words  and  its  music  familiar  on  their  lips.  It  was 
popularity  too  quick  grown  to  last  without  a  large  dimi¬ 
nution  ;  the  love  of  his  poetry  was  too  passionate  to 
stand  the  test  of  time.  It  is  not  worth  while  now  to 
measure  the  extraneous  causes  which  helped  that  popu¬ 
larity  :  his  rank,  his  beauty,  his  audacity,  the  exposure  of 
his  domestic  discord,  his  foreign  adventures,  half  wan¬ 
derer,  half  exile — all  were  elements  in  that  fascination, 
wherewith  all  the  world  watched  him  and  welcomed  his 
words.  Without  meaning,  in  a  lecture  in  which  I  have 
so  much  to  dispose  of,  to  dwell  on  the  personal  history  of 
Lord  Byron,  let  me  only  remark,  in  passing,  how  striking 
is  the  contrast  between  the  husband’s  sentimental  solicit¬ 
ing  of  the  world’s  sympathies,  along  with  a  sensual  defi¬ 
ance  of  all  that  is  most  sacred  by  the  laws  of  God  and»of 
man ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  heroic  silence  and  self- 
control  of  the  wife,  and,  along  with  it,  a  life  of  devoted 
and  toilsome  charity,  in  which  dhe  has  sought  the  repa¬ 
ration  of  her  hopes  and  happiness.  Who  can  question 
which  was  the  injured  one  ? 

The  extraneous  causes  of  Byron’s  popularity  would  be 
altogether  inadequate  to  account  for  it.  Much  as  they 
may  have  helped  it,  they  alone  never  could  have  given  it. 
Looking  at  it  now  as  a  matter  of  literary  history,  the 


274 


LECTURE  NINTH. 


true  causes  are  to  be  discovered,  I  believe,  both  in  the 
strength  and  in  the  weakness  of  his  genius.  If  that 
strength  had  been  less  than  it  was,  he  could  not  have 
gained  the  influence  he  did  over  the  minds  of  his  fellow- 
men  :  if  there  had  been  less  of  weakness  blended  with 
his  might,  he  would  not  have  gained  that  influence  so 
widely  and  so-  soon.  Such  is  the  paradox  of  poetic  popu¬ 
larity.  The  same  causes  will  explain  the  decline  of  By¬ 
ron’s  influence.  I  mean  the  extent  of  that  decline,  fur¬ 
nishing  a  discrimination  between  what  is  permanent  and 
what  is  perishable  in  his  poetry.  All  that  I  propose  to 
do  is  to  notice  some  of  the  chief  characteristics  of  his 
poetry,  so  as  to  judge  thereby  of  its  past  popularity  and 
the  estimation  it  is  now  held  in. 

Lord  Byron  gained  the  public  ear,  in  part,  by  his  com¬ 
mand  of  the  simple  Saxon  part  of  the  language.  In  his 
choice  of  words,  he  is  one  of  the  most  idiomatic  of  the 
English  poets  :  his  genuine  English  is  shown  forth  in  his 
poetry  and  the  vigorous  prose  style  of  his  letters — the 
English-Latinized  words  being  present  in  small  pro¬ 
portion.  This  admirable  command  of  the  “  best  trea¬ 
sures”  of  our  tongue  was  not,  I  think,  accompanied  with 
an  equal  power  of  structure  and  combination,  in  the  ab¬ 
sence  of  which  there  is  betrayed  the  want  of  that  stu¬ 
dious  and  dutiful  culture  of  the  language  and  versification 
which  the  greatest  of  the  poets  recognise  as  part  of  their 
discipline,  and  to  which,  no  doubt — the  art  and  the  inspira¬ 
tion  combined — we  owe  both  the  exquisite  graces  of  Shaks- 
peare’s  verse  and  the  magnificent  harmonies  of  Spenser’s 
and  Milton’s. 

With  such  power  over  his  language,  as  an  organ  of 
expression,  Byron  had  other  powers  which  are  the  poet’s 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


275 


endowment;  and  the  one  and  simple  solution  of  his  fame 
is  his  gift  of  imagination,  accompanied  with,  or  perhaps 
more  truly  including,  fine  poetic  sensibilities.  Now  when 
these  sensibilities  were  in  a  natural  and  healthy  mood; 
when  his  heart  was  open  to  genuine  influences,  so  that 
there  was  the  true  poetic  sympathy  between  the  inner 
world  of  spirit  and  the  outer  world  of  sense;  when,  in 
short,  Nature  had  her  will  with  this  wayward  child, — the 
utterance  was  a  true  and  beautiful  flow  of  poetic  inspira¬ 
tion,  as  in  that  tranquil  passage  in  Childe  Harold : 

“  Clear,  placid  Leman  !  thy  contrasted  lake 
With  the  wild  world  I  dwelt  in,  is  a  thing 
Which  warns  me,  with  its  stillness,  to  forsake 
Earth’s  troubled  waters  for  a  purer  spring. 

This  quiet  sail  is  as  a  noiseless  wing 
To  waft  me  from  distraction.  Once  I  loved 
Torn  Ocean’s  roar,  but  thy  soft  murmuring 
Sounds  sweet  as  if  a  sister’s  voice  reproved. 

That  I  with  stern  delight  should  e’er  have  been  so  moved. 

It  is  the  hush  of  night,  and  all  between 

Thy  margin  and  the  mountains,  dusk,  yet  clear, 

Mellow’d  and  mingling,  yet  distinctly  seen, 

Save  darken’d  Jura,  whose  capt  heights  appear 
Precipitously  steep;  and  drawing  near 
There  breathes  a  living  fragrance  from  the  shore 
Of  flowers  yet  fresh  with  childhood;  on  the  ear 
Drops  the  light  drip  of  the  suspended  oar, 

Or  chirps  the  grasshopper  one  good-night  carol  more.” 

This  is  true  poetic  description,  in  which,  while  the  poet 
appears  only  to  express  a  docile  recipiency  of  what  Nature 
bestows,  he  gives  back  to  be  blended  with  it  both  his 
own  emotion  and  the  light  which  a  poet’s  imagination 
creates. 

A  passage  proving  higher  power  is  the  well-known  de- 


276 


LECTURE  NINTH. 


scription  of  the  Gladiator,  in  the  same  poem.  It  is  a 
higher  strain,  for  it  is  a  description  purely  visionary — 
telling  of  no  spectacle  of  the  bodily  sight — but  a  reality 
of  spiritual  vision.  The  poet  stood  within  the  vacant  and 
silent  circuit  of  the  Coliseum,  no  sound  touching  his  ear, 
no  sight  save  the  ruins  reaching  his  eye,  but  inspired  by 
the  local  association,  and  by  the  image  which  sculpture 
had  made  familiar,  he  sees  and  hears  through  centuries ; 
and  the  thronged  amphitheatre  rises  up  before  him  with 
all  the  horrid  sights  and  sounds  of  Rome’s  brutal  sports, 
in  his  rapt  vision  of  the  dying  athlete :  nay  more,  (and 
this  is  the  grandest  part  of  the  vision,  full  of  a  moral 
beauty,)  looking  to  the  wild  region  of  the  Danube,  he 
beholds  the  distant  cottage  of  the  Gladiator,  with  his  chil¬ 
dren  in  happy  ignorance  of  the  murdered  father’s  misery ; 
and  further — such  can  be  a  poet’s  seeing — he  beholds 
Alaric  and  his  hosts  coming  down  in  vengeance  on  the 
doomed  and  guilty  city  : 

“  I  see  before  me  tho  Gladiator  lie  ; 
lie  leans  upon  his  hand — his  manly  brow 
Consents  to  death,  but  conquers  agony, 

And  his  droop’d  head  sinks  gradually  low — 

And  through  his  side  the  last  drops,  ebbing  slow 
From  the  red  gash,  fall  heavy,  one  by  one, 

Like  the  first  of  a  thunder  shower;'*  and  now 


*  This, — “  the  first  of  a  thunder  showor,”  as  applied  to  the  heavy 
blood-drops  from  the  Gladiator's  wound — always  seemed  to  me  a  de¬ 
fective  figure ;  but  where,  in  any  poem,  will  any  thing  be  found  more 
perfect  in  its  simple  illustrative  beauty  than  the  lines  of  Childe 
Harold  on  the  march  to  Waterloo  ? 

“And  Ardennes  waves  above  them  her  green  leaves 
Dewy  with  Nature’s  tear-drops,  as  they  pass, 

Grieving,  if  aught  inanimate  e’er  grieves 
Over  the  unreturning  brave.”  W.  B.  R. 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


277 


The  arena  swims  around  him — he  is  gone 
Ere  ceased  the  inhuman  shout  which  hailed  the  wretch  who  won. 

He  heard  it,  but  he  heeded  not — his  eyes 
Were  with  his  heart,  and  that  was  far  away : 

He  reck’d  not  of  tho  life  he  lost,  nor  prize, 

But  where  his  rude  hut  by  the  Danube  lay — 

There  were  his  young  barbarians  all  at  play, 

There  was  their  Dacian  mother — he,  their  sire, 

Butcher’d  to  make  a  Roman  holiday — 

All  this  rush’d  with  his  blood. — Shall  he  expire 
And  unavenged  ?  Arise,  ye  Goths,  and  glut  your  ire  !” 

In  this,  there  is  genuine  poetic  vision,  genuine  feeling; 
in  a  word,  true  imaginative  power,  and  wondrous  words 
of  simple  English  to  give  voice  to  it. 

I  would  refer  to  another  passage,  less  striking,  but  also 
characteristic  of  Byron’s  best  power,  and  which  I  wish  to 
cite,  because  it  admirably  exemplifies  how  simple,  both  in 
conception  and  in  expression,  is  true  poetic  sublimity.  It 
in  the  passage  in  which  the  poet,  assuming  the  character 
of  a  Greek,  utters  his  emotion  on  the  plain  of  Marathon ; 
and  the  imaginative  truth  and  sublimity  of  the  lines  ad¬ 
mit  of  a  very  simple  analysis.  There  are  presented  two 
of  the  grandest  of  earth’s  natural  objects — a  range  of 
mountains  on  the  one  side,  and  the  sea  on  the  other; 
between  them  a  tract  of  ground  hallowed  by  one  of  the 
world’s  greatest  battles,  the  victory  that  saved  Europe 
from  Asia's  conquest;  and  that  combining  power,  which  is 
one  of  the  chief  functions  of  the  imagination — not  only 
groups,  nay,  more  than  groups — unites  these  three  great 
objects,  mountain,  plain,  and  ocean,  with  all  their 
memories,  but  also  vivifies  them  with  the  deep  emotion 
of  the  solitary  human  being  standing  in  the  midst  of 
them  : 

S 


24 


278 


LECTURE  NINTH. 


“  The  mountains  look  on  Marathon, 

And  Marathon  looks  on  the  sea; 

And  musing  there  an  houi  alone, 

I  thought  that  Greece  m.ght  still  be  free; 

For  standing  on  the  Persian’s  grave, 

I  could  not  deem  myself  a  slave. 

A  king  sat  on  the  rocky  brow, 

Which  looks  o’er  seaborn  Salamis; 

And  ships,  by  thousands,  lay  below, 

And  men  in  nations  ;  all  were  his  ! 

He  counted  them  at  break  of  day ; 

And  when  the  sun  set,  where  were  they?” 

Such  passages  illustrate  the  best  moods  of  Boron’s 
genius,  and  it  would  be  agreeable  to  unweave  more 
of  the  same  description  from  all  that  is  false  and 
morbid  in  his  poetry,  but  such  a  process  would  be 
altogether  inadequate  for  the  understanding  of  that 
poetry  and  the  influence  it  exerted.  When  we  re¬ 
member  how  largely  a  weak  sentimentalism  entered  into 
that  popularity,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  it  was  won 
by  the  poet’s  weakness  as  well  as  by  his  power;  by  what 
was  morbid  as  well  as  by  what  was  healthful.  We  may 
form  a  judgment  now  of  the  character  of  his  poetry,  by 
looking  at  his  dealing  with  what  were  his  two  chief 
themes,  human  character,  and  the  material  world — the 
universe  of  sight  and  sound.  Now  with  regard  to  his 
treatment  of  human  character,  whether  it  be  in  the  ex¬ 
pression  of  his  own  thoughts  and  feelings,  or  in  the 
invention  of  poetic  persons,  and  whether  these  inventions 
be  meant  to  be  independent  of  himself,  or  to  shadow 
forth  his  own  nature,  there  is,  in  all,  disease,  deep-seated, 
clinging  disease.  You  search  in  vain  for  a  single  health¬ 
ful  impersonation  of  humanity ;  all  the  creations  are  hoi- 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


270 


low  images,  with  no  life  or  heart  in  them.  Turn  to  Shaks- 
peare’s  creations,  even  those  most  removed  from  common 
life,  or  follow  Spenser  into  the  shadowy  regions  of  Fairy 
Land,  or  Milton  into  his  supernatural  spaces,  and  so  faithful 
are  their  creations  to  a  deep  science  of  humanity,  that  every 
human  heart  recognises  the  truth  of  them  :  they  live  and 
have  a  reality  by  virtue  of  their  poetic  truthfulness.  But 
of  Byron’s  heroes  or  of  his  heroines,  which  is  a  natural, 
truthful  character,  such  as  great  poets  give  for  the  admi¬ 
ration  or  for  the  admonition  of  their  fellow-beings  ?  No 
pure  and  lofty  idea  of  womanhood  appeared  in  his  female 
personages;  he  scarce  lifts  them  above  the  sensual  soft¬ 
ness  of  oriental  degradation,  investing  it  in  a  delusive 
light  of  false  and  fanciful  sentiment.  His  male  person¬ 
ages  (they  are  not  truthful  enough  to  be  called  characters') 
are  strangely  alike  in  their  unreality.  “But”  (as  has 
been  justly  remarked  by  the  sagacious  author  of  Philip 
Van  Artavelde*)  “  there  is  yet  a  worse  defect  in  them. 
Lord  Byron’s  conception  of  a  hero,  is  an  evidence  not 
only  of  scanty  materials  of  knowledge  from  which  to  con¬ 
struct  the  ideal  of  a  human  being,  but  also  of  a  want  of 
perception  of  what  is  great  or  noble  in  our  nature.  His 
heroes  are  creatures  abandoned  to  their  passions,  and 
essentially,  therefore,  weak  of  mind.  Strip  them  of  the 
veil  of  mystery  and  the  trappings  of  poetry,  resolve  them 
into  their  plain  realities,  and  they  are  such  beings  as,  in 
the  eyes  of  a  reader  of  masculine  judgmeut,  would  cer¬ 
tainly  excite  no  sentiment  of  admiration,  even  if  they  did 
not  provoke  contempt.  When  the  conduct  and  feelings 
attributed  to  them  are  reduced  into  prose,  and  brought  to 


*  Preface  to  Philip  Van  Artavelde,  p.  xv 


280 


LECTURE  NINTH. 


the  test  of  a  rational  consideration,  they  must  be  perceived 
to  be  beings  in  whom  there  is  no  strength,  except  that  of 
their  intensely  selfish  passions;  in  whom  all  is  vanity; 
their  exertions  being  for  vanity  under  the  name  of  love 
or  revenge,  and  their  sufferings  for  vanity  under  the  name 
of  pride.  If  such  beings  as  these  are  to  be  regarded  as 
heroical,  where  in  human  nature  are  we  to  look  for  what 
is  low  in  sentiment  or  infirm  in  character?” 

How  nobly  opposite  to  Lord  Byron’s  ideal  was  that 
conception  of  an  heroical  character  which  took  life  and 
immortality  from  the  hand  of  Shakspeare  : — 

“  Give  me  that  man 

That  is  not  passion’s  slave,  and  I  will  wear  him 
In  my  heart’s  core ;  ay,  in  my  heart  of  heart.” 

It  was,  however,  with  these  fictions,  that  the  popular 
fancy  was  fascinated,  not  only  because  the  poet’s  genius 
gave  a  charm  to  them,  but  because  that  which  addresses 
itself  to  what  is  false  and  morbid  in  man  or  woman  will 
find  a  response,  happily  only  for  a  time.  In  like  manner, 
there  was  an  attraction  in  the  unreserved  disclosures  which 
the  poet  was  all  the  while  making  of  his  own  feelings 
and  passions,  taking  the  large  concourse  of  his  listeners 
into  his  confidence;  and  running  through  those  feelings 
there  was  the  poison  of  moral  disease.  On  the  pages  of 
Byron  you  can  scarce  escape  from  some  form  or  other  of 
morbid  feeling,  a  vicious  egotism,  pride,  contempt,  misan¬ 
thropy  :  these  are  attributes  not  of  strength,  but  of  weak¬ 
ness;  and  knowing,  as  we  now  do,  the  story  of  his  career, 
is  it  not  pitiful  that  one  so  gifted  should  have  gone  whin¬ 
ing  through  life,  complaining  of  man,  and  rebellious  of 
God,  and  all  the  while  self-indulgent  alike  in  sensual  and 
sentimental  voluptuousness  ?  It  is  well  said,  that  if  life  be 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


281 


“over  so  unfortunate,  a  man’s  folding  his  hands  over  it  in 
melancholy  mood,  and  suffering  himself  to  he  made  a 
puppet  by  it,  is  a  sadly  weak  proceeding.  Most  thoughtful 
men  have  probably  some  dark  fountains  in  their  souls,  by 
the  side  of  which,  if  there  were  time,  and  it  were  decorous, 
they  could  let  their  thoughts  sit  down  and  wail  indefinitely. 
That  long  Byron  wail  fascinated  men  for  a  time,  because- 
there  is  that  in  human  nature.”*  Herein  was  the  mischief 
that  Boron’s  poetry  did  in  its  season  of  authority:  revcr.s^ 
ing  the  poet’s  function,  which  is  to  heal  what  is  unhealthy, 
to  strengthen  what  is  weak,  to  chasten  what  is  corrupt, 
and  to  lift  up  what  is  sinking  down  :  he  fostered  what  was 
false,  ministered  to  what  was  morbid,  and,  moreover, 
tempted  them  on  to  the  willing  delusion  that  their  weak¬ 
ness  was  strength.  Thus  unreal  and  false  habits  of  feeling 
were  engendered,  and  men  and  women,  under  this  delu¬ 
sion,  grew  sentimental  and  fantastic,  aud  flattered  them¬ 
selves  that  there  was  beauty  in  the  ugliness  of  pride,  that 
there  was  magnanimity  in  the  littleness  of  contempt,  and 
depth  of  passion  in  the  shallowness  of  discontent,  and 
majesty  in  unmanly  moodiuess  and  misanthropy.  Now  all 
this,  which  came  from  the  Byron  teaching,  was  false  both 
in  morals  and  in  poetry ;  for  in  this  mortal  life  crowded 
with  its  realities  for  every  hour  of  every  human  being’s 
existence,  all  fantastic  and  self-occupied  sadness  is  a  folly 
and  a  sin — unmanly  in  man,  unpoetic  in  the  poet,  well  re¬ 
buked  bj7  a  woman-poet’s  strenuous  words  : 

“  We  overstate  the  ills  of  life,  and  take 
Imagination,  given  us  to  bring  down 
The  choirs  of  singing  angels,  ovorshone 
By  God's  clear  glory, — down  our  earth  to  rake 


*  Friends  in  Council,  p.  198. 
24* 


282 


LECTURE  NINTH. 


The  dismal  snows  instead;  flake  following  flake 
To  cover  all  the  corn.  We  walk  upon 
The  shadow  of  hills  across  a  level  thrown. 

And  pant  like  climbers.  Near  the  aider-brake 
We  sigh  so  loud,  the  nightingale  within 
Refuses  to  sing  loud,  as  else  she  would. 

0  brothers!  let  us  leave  the  shame  and  sin 
Of  taking  vainly,  in  a  plaintive  mood. 

The  holy  name  of  Grief ! — holy  herein, 

That  by  the  grief  of  One,  came  all  our  good.”* 

I  know  of  nothing  that  more  betrays  the  moral  weak¬ 
ness  of  Byron,  than  that  he  gave  so  much  of  his  power  to 
spread  the  contagion  of  a  morbid  melancholy,  the  selfish, 
thankless,  faithless  weariness  of  life,  which  another  woman- 
poet  has  justly  called  a  blasphemy: 

“Blaspheme  not  thou  thy  sacred  life,  nor  turn 
O’er  joys  that  God  hath  for  a  season  lent 
Perchance  to  try  thy  spirit,  and  its  bent. 

Effeminate  soul  and  base,  weakly  to  mourn. 

There  lies  no  desert  in  the  land  of  life, 

For  e’en  that  tract  that  barrenest  doth  seem, 

Laboured  of  thee  in  faith  and  hope,  shall  teem 
With  heavenly  harvests  and  rich  gatherings,  rife. 

Haply  no  more,  music  and  mirth  and  love, 

And  glorious  things  of  old  and  younger  art. 

Shall  of  thy  days  make  one  perpetual  feast: 

But  when  these  bright  companions  all  depart, 

Lay  there  thy  head  upon  the  ample  breast 

Of  Hope, — and  thou  shalt  hear  the  angels  sing  above,  p 

In  Lord  Byron’s  portraiture  of  human  character,  his 
genius  was  prostituted  to  a  worse  abuse,  in  that  it  con¬ 
founds  and  sophisticates  the  simplicity  of  conscience — 
breaks  down  the  barriers  between  right  and  wrong,  by 
abating  the  natural  abhorrence  of  crime,  and  arraying  the 

*  Sonnet  on  Exaggeration.  Mrs.  Browning’s  Poems,  vol.  i.  p.  344. 

f  Poems  by  Frances  Anne  Kemble,  p,  150. 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


283 


guilt  of  even  the  vilest  vice  in  a  false  splendour  and  pride. 
How  different  from  Shakspeare’s  genuine  morality,  so 
loyal  to  the  best  moral  instincts,  never  making  vice  at¬ 
tractive,  not  tempting  us  even  to  look  fondly  on  the 
proud  and  sinful  temper  until  it  be  chastened  by  adver¬ 
sity,  still  less  holding  up  for  admiration  the  moral 
monsters  in  whom  one  virtue  is  linked  with  a  thousand 
crimes ! 

Let  me  next  hasten  to  notice  something  of  the  character 
of  the  poetry  of  Byron,  considered  as  a  poet  of  nature :  I 
mean,  of  the  material  world.  In  the  last  lectui’e  I  had  oc¬ 
casion  to  remark,  that  it  seemed  to  me  a  happy  circum¬ 
stance  that  the  great  results  in  physical  science  did  not 
take  place  during  the  low  state  of  religious  belief  that  ex¬ 
isted  in  the  last  century,  but  were  reserved  for  a  better 
period  of  opinion,  which  could  make  those  results  sub¬ 
servient  to  the  cause  of  truth,  instead  of  being  perverted 
to  the  uses  of  materialism.  I  would  now  add  that,  while 
iu  our  times  there  has  been  such  active  scientific  study  of 
nature,  happily  the  poetic  culture  of  nature  has  been  no 
less  earnest,  and  thus  a  deeper  knowledge  of  the  marvels 
and  the  glory  of  the  universe  has  been  promoted  both  by 
the  processes  of  analysis  and  observation,  and  by  the  pro¬ 
cesses  of  the  imagination.  Let  us  see  how  Byron  contri¬ 
buted  to  this,  and  what  he  has  done  to  help  his  fellow- 
men  to  the  poetic  visions  of  nature.  No  poet  ever  enjoyed 
larger  or  more  various  opportunities  of  communing  with 
earth  and  the  elements.  He  was  familiar  with  ocean  and 
lake,  with  Alpine  regions,  and  with  Grecian  and  Italian 
lands  and  skies.  He  had  a  quick  susceptibility  to  all  that 
is  grand  and  beautiful  in  the  world  of  sense,  as  he  wandered 
over  the  earth. 


2S4 


LECTURE  NINTH. 


“  Tlic  sounding  cataract 


Haunted  (him)  like  a  passion  :  the  tall  rock, 

The  mountain,  and  the  deep  and  gloomy  wood, 
Their  colours  and  their  forms,  were  then  to  (him) 
An  appetite  ;  a  feeling  and  a  love 
That  had  no  need  of  a  remoter  charm, 

By  thought  supplied,  nor  any  inter 


Unborrowcd  from  the  eye. 


But  bis  love  of  nature  was  not  only  passionate;  it  Wits 
thoughtful  and  imaginative.  He  knew  that  true  poetic 
description  must  go  beyond  the  rapture  which  mere  bodily 
sight  can  give,  and  deal  with  all  of  which  this  material 
world  is  symbolical.  His  strong  poetic  instincts,  when 
they  chanced  to  be  associated  with  true  and  healthy  feel¬ 
ing,  gave  forth  often  grand  or  beautiful  description  ;  he 
aspired  to  the  highest  reach  of  poetic  description  of  nature, 
for  of  himself  he  said, 

“  With  the  stars 

And  the  quick  spirit  of  the  universe 
He  held  his  dialogues ;  and  they  did  teach 
To  him  the  magic  of  their  mysteries. 

To  him  the  book  of  night  was  open’d  wide, 

And  the  voices  from  the  deep  abyss  reveal’d 
A  marvel  and  a  seeret.”+ 

* 

But  these  aspirations  were  frustrated,  for  a  moral  weak¬ 
ness  perverted  and  lowered  them,  causing  an  inequality  in 
his  poetry  which  it  is  lamentable  to  look  at.  At  one 
moment  we  believe  that  we  are  about  to  behold  him 


“  Springing  from  crystal  step  to  crystal  step, 

In  the  bright  air,  where  none  can  follow  him  ;”J 


but  straightway  we  see  the  winged  energy  dragged  down 


*  Wordsworth’s  Lines  written  abc  e  Tintern  Abbey..  Works,  p.  159 
f  The  Dream,  stanza  viii. 

J  Landor,  Imaginary  Conversation,  vol.  iii.  p.  363. 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


285 


to  earth,  soiled  with  earthy  things,  and  stumbling  in  the 
darkness  and  the  mire  of  low  and  turbid  passions.  Aspir¬ 
ing  to  commune  with  the  infinite,  the  poet’s  heart,  and 
therefore  his  genius  too,  were  cramped  within  the  narrow 
confines  of  petty  pride  and  weak  hatred.  The  blindness 
of  idolatry  came  over  him.  The  world  of  sight  and  sound 
became  a  divinity  to  him.  That  which  was  meant  for 
only  a  means  to  higher  ends  was  made  all  in  all  to  him. 
The  material  world,  framed  as  it  so  wondrously  is,  to 
minister  not  only  to  our  bodily  wants,  but  to  the  imagi 
native  appetites  which  feed  on  the  grand  and  the  beauti¬ 
ful,  hemmed  his  faithless  spirit  in;  and  the  genius  of 
Byron  had  not  power  euough  to  extricate  him  from  the 
shallow  sophistries  of  materialism.  His  strong  passion 
for  nature,  divorcing  itself  from  the  vision  of  faith,  began 
to  spread  itself  in  misty  rhapsodies,  meaningless  of  every 
thing  but  the  old  errors  of  sensuous  systems  of  unbelief. 
When  Byron’s  poetry  began  to  utter  materialism,  it  began 
to  utter  folly,  and  then  it  ceases  to  be  poetry,  for  poetry 
is  allied  to  wisdom,  and  not  to  madness.  He  talked  of 
loving  earth  only  for  its  earthly  sake,  “  becoming  a  por¬ 
tion  of  that  around  him  j”  of  high  mountains  being  a  feel¬ 
ing  to  him;  and 

“  That  he  could  see 

Nothing  to  loathe  in  nature,  save  to  be 
A  link  reluctant  in  that  fleshly  chain, 

Classed  among  creatures,  when  the  soul  can  flee, 

And  with  the  sky,  the  peak,  the  heaving  plain 
Of  ocean,  and  the  stars  mingle,  and  not  in  vain : 

*  *  $  •*  a 

And  when  at  length  the  mind  shall  be  all  free 
From  what  it  hates  in  this  degraded  form, 

Reft  of  its  carnal  life,  save  what  shall  be. 

Existent  happier  in  the  fly  and  worm  : 


280 


LECTURE  NIXTII. 


Where  elements  to  elements  conform, 

And  dust  is  as  it  should  be,  shall  I  not 
Feel  all  I  see,  lass  dazzling,  but  more  warm? 

Tho  bodiless  thought?  The  spirit  of  each  spot, 

Of  which,  even  now,  I  share  at  times,  the  immortal  lot.’’* 

Now  strip  this,  and  the  multitude  of  passages  like  it,  of 
all  that  is  fantastic;  measure  it,  as  you  please,  either  by 
the  practical  rules  of  common  sense,  or,  by  what  is  more 
appropriate,  the  standard  of  imaginative  truth  and  wisdom, 
and  what  is  it  but  the  perplexity  and  the  folly  of  material¬ 
ism  ?  What  natural  instinct,  let  me  ask,  is  so  strong  in  the 
human  heart  as  that  which  recoils  from  the  dread  anticipa¬ 
tion  that  this  living  flesh  of  ours,  or  the  cherished  features 
of  those  that  are  dear  to  us,  will  be  fed  upon  by  the  worms 
in  the  grave  ? — a  thought  that  would  crush  us  down  in  des¬ 
perate  abasement,  but  for  the  one  bright  hope  beyond,  and 
then,  to  think  of  a  poet  exulting  in  the  prospect  of  that 
remnant  of  his  carnal  life  “  existent  happier  in  the  worm  !” 
When  Byron  is  honoured  as  a  great  poet  of  nature,  it  is 
well  to  understand  where  he  will  lead  his  disciple,  and 
where  he  will  desert  him.  The  material  world  has  high 
and  appropriate  uses  in  the  building  up  of  our  moral  being  : 
the  study  of  it,  in  a  right  and  believing  spirit,  is  full  of 
instruction;  but  it  is  worthless  and  perilous  if  we  lose 
sight  of  the  great  truth  of  the  soul’s  spiritual  supremacy 
over  it;  that  there  is  implanted  in  each  human  being  an 
undying  particle,  destined  to  outlive  not  this  earth  alone, 
but  the  universe.  This  poet,  “  sick  of  himself  for  very 
selfishness,”  his  heart  aching  with  its  hollowness,  sent  his 
materialized  imagination  to  roam  over  the  world  of  sense, 
ocean  and  mountain,  seeking  ivhat  the  world  could  not 


*  Childe  Harold,  canto  iii,  72,  74. 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


m 


give.  “Where  shall  wisdom  be  found?  and  where  is  the 
place  of  understanding?  The  depth  saith,  It  is  not  in 
me,  and  the  sea  saith,  It  is  not  with  me.”* 

Now,  if  we  seek  a  solution  of  the  strange  inequality  of 
Byron’s  poetic  power,  and  the  perversion  and  imperfection 
of  his  descriptions  of  nature,  it  is  in  this  happy  truth 
that  the  cultivation  of  the  imagination  is  dependent  on 
the  moral  feelings  ;  and  all 

“Outward  forms,  the  loftiest,  still  receive 
Their  finer  influences  from  the  life  within.” 

Coleridge,  in  his  Ode  on  Dejection,  tells  us  that  the 
poetic  vision  of  nature  is  sealed  even  to  that  uncongenial 
mood — 

“The  wan  and  heartless  mood — 

A  grief  without  a  pang,  void,  dark,  and  drear ; 

A  stifled,  drowsy,  unimpassioned  grief. 

Which  finds  no  natural  outlet — no  relief 
In  word,  or  sigh,  or  tear. 

•s  »  *  *  * 

My  genial  spirits  fail, 

And  what  can  these  avail 
To  lift  the  smothering  weight  from  off  my  breast  ? 

It  were  a  vain  endeavour, 

Though  I  should  gaze  forever 
On  that  green  light  that  lingers  in  the  West: 

I  may  not  hope,  from  outward  forms,  to  win 

The  passion  and  the  life,  whose  fountains  are  within. 

*•  *  *  JS  * 

- From  the  soul  itself  must  issue  forth 

A  light,  a  glory,  a  fair  luminous  cloud, 

Enveloping  the  earth ; 

And  from  the  soul  itself  must  there  be  sent 
A  sweet  and  potent  voice,  of  its  own  birth — 

Of  all  sweet  sounds  the  life  and  element !” 


*  Job  xxviii.  12, 14- 


But  if  the  fountain  of  the  life  within  he  not  only 
darkened  with  dejection,  hut  turbid  with  evil  passions — 
if  the  soul  itself  be  distempered — it  cannot  send  forth 
“  the  beautiful  and  beauty-making  power,”  but,  in  its 
stead,  such  perplexed  and  lurid  flashes  as  burst  from  the 
genius  of  Byron. 

That  wise  expounder  of  poetic  power  and  of  nature, 
the  author  of  “  The  Modern  Painters,”  has  justly  said 
that  “all  egotism  and  selfish  care  or  regard  are,  in  propor¬ 
tion  to  their  constancy,  destructive  of  imagination,  whose 
play  and  power  depend  altogether  on  our  being  able  to 
forget  ourselves,  and  enter,  like  possessing  spirits,  into  the 
bodies  of  things  about  us.”*  Now  there  is  deep  instruc¬ 
tion  in  this — that,  whenever  Byron’s  imagination  rose 
above  that  selfishness  which  was  his  clinging  vice,  his 
greatest  power  was  displayed ;  and  it  is  woful  to  see  how 
often  this  leprosy  is  breaking  out  on  the  poet’s  brow  as 
he  stands  by  the  incense-altar. 

There  is  this  further  admonition  in  all  that  Byron  failed 
in — an  admonition  plain  and  irresistible — that  just  so  far 
as  poet  or  philosopher  places  himself  in  antagonism  to 
Divine  Truth,  so  far  must  he  fail  in  all  that  he  adven¬ 
tures  in  the  deep  things  of  nature,  of  man,  of  his  own 
soul.  “  Science,”  it  has  been  justly  said,  “  in  the  hands 
of  infidelity,  degenerates  into  crumbling  materialism  :  it 
is  blind  to  the  beauty,  deaf  to  the  harmony  of  the  uni¬ 
verse;  as  its  objects  rise,  it  sinks;  when  it  comes  to  treat 
of  human  nature,  its  views  are  base  and  degrading ;  its 
morality  is  a  matter  of  barter,  or  a  wary  drifting  along 
before  the  animal  impulses.  And  what  can  the  poetry 


*■  Ruskin’s  Modern  Painters,  vol.  ii.  p.  ISO. 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


289 


of  infidelity  be,  except  a  deifying  of  the  senses  and  the 
passions,  while  the  consciousness  of  higher  cravings 
and  aspirations,  which  cannot  be  wholly  extinguished, 
vents  itself  in  bursts  of  self-mockery,  or  in  the  cold  sneer 
of  derision  and  contempt  for  all  mankind?”*  The  highest 
truth  and  grandeur  that  pagan  poetry  attained,  what  were 
they  but  aspirations  for  the  coming  Christian  truth  ? 
And  when,  in  Christian  times,  the  poet  rejects  that  truth, 
refusing  its  light,  he  takes  up  his  abode  in  darkness 
deeper  than  the  heathen’s,  and  it  is  impossible  for  him  to 
comprehend,  much  less  expound,  nature,  himself,  or  his 
fellow-men ;  for  nowhere  can  the  unaided,  solitary  mind 
of  man  travel,  whether  it  be  into  his  own  moral  and  spi¬ 
ritual  nature,  with  the  mysterious  tribunal  of  conscience, 
so  weak  and  so  strong,  or  into  the  hearts  of  mankind,  or 
to  the  mute  creation,  or  into  the  spaces  of  the  universe, 
to  the  blade  of  grass  at  our  feet,  or  the  most  distant  star 
in  the  firmament, — nowhere  can  it  travel,  but  it  shall  find 
itself  baffled  by  mystery — mystery,  the  burden  of  which 
grows  heavier  and  heavier  the  farther  it  is  removed  from 
the  only  truth  that  can  solve  it : 

“  For  the  soul, 

At  every  step  when  she  around  her  cell, 

Sees,  yet  adores  not  the  Adorable. 

More  faint  and  faiut  the  gleams  which  with  Him  dwell, 
Break  out  on  her;  more  feebly  His  dear  voice, 

That  which  alone  bids  nature  to  rejoice, 

More  faint  and  faint  she  hears;  till  all  alone, 

From  scene  to  scene  of  doubt,  she  wanders  on 


*  The  Mission  of  the  Comforter,  by  Julius  Charles  Hare,  voh  i. 

p.  200. 


25 


290 


LECTURE  NINTH 


Along  a  dreary  waste,  starless  and  long, 

Starless  and  sad,  a  dreary  waste  along, 

Unchecr’d,  unsatisfied,  for  evermore 
Companionless,  and  fatherless,  and  poor.”* 

With  a  mind  too  vigorous  for  inaction,  and  a  tempei 
too  proud  and  wilful  for  either  the  moral  or  intellectual 
discipline  which  the  greatest  writers  recognise  as  a  duty 
they  ask  no  exemption  from,  Lord  Byron,  amid  the 
large  variety  of  his  productions,  has  left  no  one  elaborate, 
well-sustained  poem ;  and  the  evidence  of  his  genius  is 
to  be  found  in  passages  or  in  the  short  poems,  such  as  the 
“  Prisoner  of  Chilian, ”  or,  what  is  perhaps  the  first  and 
most  faultless  of  his  poems,  (which  I  should  be  glad  to 
pause  on,)  “  The  Dream.” 

If  a  fitful  irregularity  was  characteristic  of  this  splendid 
career  of  authorship,  no  less  so  was  the  close  of  it.  All 
restraint  growing  more  vexatious  and  burdensome  to  him, 
whether  the  discipline  of  his  art,  the  discipline  of  society, 
or  the  discipline  of  conscience,  he  fashioned  that  ribald 
poem,  Don  Juan,  to  let  his  fancy  riot  in.  It  was  an  igno¬ 
minious  retreat  for  genius,  the  last  act  of  self-degradation. 
I  cite  one  stanza  from  it,  to  show,  by  a  contrast  that  shall 
follow,  to  what  base  uses  a  poet  can  bring  his  talent.  He 
looks  at  the  metropolis  of  England,  with  the  dome  of  St. 
Paul’s,  sublime  in  magnitude,  and  venerable  by  the  devo¬ 
tions  of  many  generations — the  dead  and  the  living — and 
thus  he  images  it : 

“A  mighty  mass  of  brick,  and  smoke,  and  shipping, 

Dirty  and  dusky,  but  as  wide  as  eye 

Could  reach,  with  here  and  there  a  sail  just  skipping 

In  sight — then  lost  amidst  a  forestry 


*  The  Christian  Scholar,  by  the  author  of  The  Cathedral,  p.  256. 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


201 


Of  masts  ; — a  wilderness  of  steeples  peeping 
On  tiptoe  through  their  sea-coal  canopy; 

A  huge,  dim  cupola,  like  a  foolscap  crown 
On  a  fool's  head — and  this  is  London-town  !”* 

I  do  not  pause  to  say  what  pitiable  prostitution  this  is 
of  the  poetic  talent,  corrupting  the  fancy  with  such  a 
nean  association  of  poor  and  heartless  wit;  but,  in  the 
outrast,  let  me  sweep  the  scoff  from  out  your  thoughts 
by  a  short  sentence,  not  clothed  in  verse,  but  overflowing 
with  poetry,  not  graced  with  metrical  music,  but  glowing 
with  the  purity  and  the  grandeur  of  imaginative  truth : 
“  It  was  only  the  other  morning,”  says  the  living  writer 
from  whom  I  quote,  “as  I  was  crossing  one  of  the  bridges 
which  bear  us  from  our  mighty  metropolis,  that  para¬ 
mount  city  of  the  earth,  that  I  was  struck,  for  the  thou¬ 
sandth  time  it  may  be,  by  the  majesty  with  which  the 
dome  dedicated  to  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  rises  out  of 
the  surrounding  sea  of  houses;  and  I  could  not  but  feel 
what  a  noble  type  it  is  of  the  city  set  upon  a  hill ;  I 
could  not  but  acknowledge  that  thus  it  behooves  the 
church  to  rise  out  of  the  world,  with  her  feet  amid  the 
world,  with  her  head  girt  only  by  the  sky.”f 

Byron’s  career  of  authorship  and  life  brought  him, 
it  might  be  said  almost  without  exaggeration,  super¬ 
annuated  at  the  age  of  thirt}’ -seven,  to  the  grave.  There 
is  a  passage  in  “Manfred”  which  has,  I  think,  a  fearful 
significancy  as  an  image  of  that  proud  defiance  with  which 
Byron  thrust  away  what  alone  could  have  restored  a 
heart  wasted  with  self-indulgence,  wounded  with  self¬ 
torment.  The  lines  tell  of  the  death  of  Otho  : 


*  Don  Juan,  canto  x.  v.  82. 

f  Archdeacon  Hare’s  charge  at  Lewes,  in  1840,  p.  6. 


'•’When  Rome’s  sixth  emperor  was  near  his  last, 

The  victim  of  a  self-inflicted  wound, 

To  shun  the  torments  of  a  public  death 
From  senates  once  his  slaves,  a  certain  soldier, 

With  show  of  loyal  pity,  would  have  stanched 
The  gushing  throat  with  his  officious  robe  ; 

The  dying  Roman  thrust  him  back,  and  said — 

Some  empire  still  in  his  expiring  glanco, — 

‘  It  is  too  late.’  ” 

While  the  influence  of  Lord  Byron’s  poetry  has  declined, 
(how  rarely  now  is  it  quoted  !)  the  estimation  of  Shelley’s 
genius  has  risen.  With  fine  poetic  endowment,  both  of 
imagination  and  feeling,  and  with  a  willing  spirit  of  poetic 
discipline  by  the  study  of  his  art,  his  mind,  unhappily,  was 
bewildered  in  the  mazes  and  the  misery  of  a  speculative 
skepticism,  which  possibly  a  nature  generous,  sincere,  and 
enthusiastic  as  his,  might  have  outgrown  in  a  longer  life. 
There  was  an  earnestness  in  his  character  that  elevates 
his  memory  above  that  of  Byron,  but  the  cloud  of  unbelief 
brought  kindred  confusion  over  his  vision,  as  when  he 
speaks  of  life  and  death  : 

“  In  this  life 

Of  error,  ignorance,  and  strife, 

Where  nothing  is,  but  all  things  seem. 

And  we  the  shadows  of  a  dream, 

It  is  a  modest  creed,  and  yet 
Pleasant,  if  one  considers  it, 

To  own  that  death  itself  must  be 
Like  all  the  rest,  a  mockery.”* 

[n  the  beautiful  lines  written  among  the  Euganean 
Hills,  you  cannot  but  see  how  Shelley’s  profound  sense  of 
the  beauty  of  earth  is  imbittered  by  the  gloom  of  infidelity: 


*  The  Sensitive  Plant,  Shelley’s  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  1. 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


293 


“  Many  a  green  isle  needs  must  be 
In  the  deep,  wide  sea  of  misery; 

Or  the  mariner,  worn  and  wan, 

Never  thus  could  voyage  on, 

Day  and  night,  and  night  and  day, 

Drifting  on  his  weary  way, 

With  the  solid  darkness  black 
Closing  round  his  vessel’s  track. 

While  above  the  sunless  sky, 

Big  with  clouds,  hangs  heavily.” 

It  is  no  untruthful  tenderness  that  has  described  Shel¬ 
ley  as  “  an  unhappy  enthusiast,  who,  through  a  calami¬ 
tous  combination  of  circumstances,  galling  and  fretting  a 
morbidly  sensitive  temperament,  became  a  fanatical  hater 
of  the  perversions  and  distortions  conjured  up  by  his  own 
feverish  imagination.  .  .  .  He  was  under  the  miserable 
delusion  of  hating,  under  the  name  of  Christianity,  what 
was  not  Christianity  itself,  but  rather  a  medley  of  anti- 
christian  notions  which  he  blindly  identified  with  it.” 

Considering  how  pure  Shelley’s  poetry  is  from  all  such 
sensual  depravity  as  vitiates  the  pages  of  Byron,  and  how 
earnest  he  was  in  speculations  he  believed  to  be  for  the 
good  of  his  fellow-men,  one  would  fain  look  with  pity  on 
his  errors  as  well  as  on  his  tragic  death.  It  is  with  an 
honest  power  of  friendship  that  Leigh  Hunt  says  of  Shel¬ 
ley,  that  “  Whether  interrogating  nature  in  the  icy  soli¬ 
tudes  of  Chamouny,  or  thrilling  with  the  lark  in  the  sun¬ 
shine,  or  sheddiug  indignant  tears  with  sorrow  and  poverty, 
or  pulling  flowers  like  a  child  in  the  field,  or  pitching 
himself  back  into  the  depths  of  time  and  space,  and  dis¬ 
coursing  with  the  first  forms  and  gigantic  shadows  of 
creation,  he  is  alike  in  earnest  and  at  home.”*  A  more 


T 


*  Book  of  Gems,  vol.  i.  p.  40. 
25* 


234 


LECTURE  NINTH. 


sober  judgment,  well  describing  a  great  deal  of  Shelley’s 
poetry,  is  given  by  Mr.  Henry  Taylor,  in  the  preface  to 
Philip  Yan  Artavelde :  “Much  beauty,  exceeding  splen¬ 
dour  of  diction  and  imagery,  cannot  but  be  perceived  in 
his  poetry,  as  well  as  exquisite  charms  of  versification ; 
and  a  reader  of  an  apprehensive  fancy  will  doubtless  be 
entranced  while  he  reads ;  but  when  he  shall  have  closed 
the  volume,  and  considered  within  himself  what  it  has 
added  to  his  stock  of  permanent  impressions,  of  recurring 
thoughts,  of  pregnant  recollections,  he  will  probably  find 
his  stores  in  this  kind  no  more  enriched  by  having  read 
Mr.  Shelley’s  poems,  than  by  having  gazed  on  so  many 
gorgeously  coloured  clouds  in  an  evening  sky :  surpassingly 
beautiful  they  were  while  before  his  eyes ;  but  forasmuch 
as  they  had  no  relevancy  to  his  life,  past  or  future,  the 
impression  upon  the  memory  barely  survived  that  upon 
the  senses.” 

In  even  the  most  cursory  survey  of  the  literature  of 
our  times,  it  becomes  a  part  of  its  history  that  one  of  the 
prose-writers,  who  has  made  a  strong  and  peculiar  impres¬ 
sion  on  many  thoughtful  intellects,  is  Thomas  Carlyle. 
Converting  simple  English  speech  into  a  strange  Teu¬ 
tonic  dialect,  he  uses  a  style  which,  while  it  is  odious  and 
repulsive  to  some,  seems,  by  a  sort  of  fascination,  to  com- 
nel  the  attention  of  others ;  and  yet  this  uncouth  style, 
so  alien  from  what  the  use  of  centuries  has  proved  to  be 
genuine  English,  that  it  almost  sounds  like  the  making 
strange  noises  to  gain  and  force  a  hearing,  is  so  redeemed 
by  the  author’s  vigour,  and  is  in  such  affinity  with  the 
strangeness  of  imagery  and  illustration  with  which  he 
utters  his  strong  thinking  and  hearty  feeling,  that  one  is 
willing  to  look  on  it,  not  as  affectation,  but  as  the  natural 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


295 


expression  of  such  a  mind — a  fashion  of  speech  for  him¬ 
self  alone.  The  impression  Mr.  Carlyle  has  made  is 
owing,  no  doubt,  chiefly  to  his  intense  earnestness;  and 
he  has  done  good  service  in  teaching  men  the  worthless¬ 
ness  of  all  formality  from  which  the  truth  has  died  out, 
and  by  exposing  unreality,  mockery — tbe  forms  of  un- 
truthfulness  and  counterfeit,  described  by  the  emphatic, 
homely  term,  “sham.”  The  time  has  not  yet  come  for  a 
full  estimate  of  Mr.  Carlyle’s  genius ;  for  there  is  not 
assurance  enough  whither  he  may  lead  his  disciples.  A 
deep  sense  of  earnestness  does  not  give  all  the  moral  se¬ 
curity  that  is  needed;  for  vice  has  its  earnestness,  far 
less  real  indeed,  as  well  as  virtue;  and  thus  the  mere 
sense  of  earnestness,  though  for  the  most  part  giving 
good  guidance,  may  betray,  if  it  be  not  held  in  just  sub¬ 
ordination  to  the  supremacy  of  the  sense  of  truth.  The 
admiration  of  power,  as  in  Carlyle’s  just  tribute  to  all  the 
robust  reality  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  character,  may  be  appro¬ 
priate  and  wise ;  but,  gazing  too  much  at  mere  power,  it 
may  disparage  the  sense  of  right,  or  rather  confound 
might  with  right.  The  readers  of  Mr.  Carlyle’s  writings 
therefore,  while  they  may  draw  moral  good  and  wisdom 
from  them,  must  needs  follow  him  with  some  caution,  for 
he  may  lead  them  into  strange  places.  When  I  consider 
what  the  English  language,  in  all  its  natural  simplicity, 
and  beauty,  and  majesty,  has  been  in  the  hands  of  the 
great  masters  of  it,  whether  in  prose  or  verse,  I  cannot 
divest  myself  of  a  misgiving  that  such  strange  and  self- 
willed  use  as  Mr.  Carlyle  makes  of  his  mother-tongue  is 
a  symptom  of  something  unsound  in  the  constitution  of 
his  mind. 

I  pass,  by  an  association  of  contrast,  to  Southey,  who&M 


296 


LECTURE  NINTH. 


use  of  the  language  shows  that  natural  and  scholarlike 
beauty  which  is  an  element  of  his  reputation,  both  as  a 
prose-writer  and  a  poet.  His  career  of  authorship,  in 
both  departments,  has  been  most  remarkable  :  in  prose, 
embracing,  with  much  miscellaneous  essay-writing  of  a 
high  order,  one  of  the  most  popular  biographies  in  our 
literature,  the  Life  of  Nelson,  and  a  learned  and  elabo¬ 
rate  historical  work,  such  as  his  History  of  Brazil ;  and 
in  poetry  the  political  odes,  resembling  Milton’s  poli¬ 
tical  poems  in  power,  a  great  variety  of  minor  pieces, 
and  such  extended  productions  as  the  heroic  narra¬ 
tive  poem  of  Roderic,  and  those  highest  efforts  of  his 
genius,  the  poems  in  which  he  brought  Asiatic  forms 
into  the  service  of  Christian  poetry  and  truth,  spiritual¬ 
izing  those  forms  of  error  as  Spenser  hallowed  and  puri¬ 
fied  chivalry  and  its  customs.  The  most  attractive  of 
these  poems  is  Thalaba — the  finest  achievement,  perhaps, 
of  what  has  been  well  styled  Southey’s  judicious  daring 
in  supernatural  poetry.  It  shadows  forth,  as  its  pervad¬ 
ing  but  not  obtruded  moral,  the  war  and  victory  of  faith, 
a  spiritual  triumph  over  the  world  and  evil  powers,  and 
thus  is  one  of  the  great  sacred  poems  in  our  literature. 
I  should  have  been  glad  of  an  opportunity  to  show 
more  fully  the  high  imaginative  character  of  this  poem, 
and  how  much  interest  may  be  found  in  the  study 
of  it.  I  can  now  do  little  more  than  remark  that  the 
poet  has  taken  not  so  much  Mohammedanism,  (certainly 
not  at  all  in  its  impurity,)  but  “  a  system  of  belief  and 
worship  developed  under  the  covenant  with  Ishmael,”  a 
remnant  of  patriarchal  faith  traditional  among  the  pure  and 
the  believing  in  Arabia  ;  and  upon  it  he  has  brought  the 
light  of  Christian  imagination  to  shine,  as  the  angel’s  face 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


297 


beamed  on  the  fugitive  bondwoman  when  he  bade  her 
turn  her  wandering  footsteps  home  again,  and  opened  for 
her  outcast  and  fainting  child  a  fountain  in  the  desert 
“  Thalaba”  is  a  poetic  story  of  faith — its  spiritual  birth, 
its  might,  its  trials,  and  its  victory — such  a  story  as  none 
but  a  Christian  poet  could  have  told.  As  you  follow  the 
hero  along  his  wondrous  career  to  its  sublime  and  pathetic 
close,  the  feeling  which  the  rapt  imagination  retains  is  a 
deep  sense  of  the  majestic  strength  given  to  the  soul  of 
man  when  God  breathes  into  it  the  spirit  of  faith.  It 
has  been  truly  remarked  of  Shakspeare’s  dramas,  that  the 
opening  scene  always  bears  an  impress  characteristic  of 
the  sequel ;  and  never  was  the  same  principle  of  art  more 
finely  proved  than  in  the  beautiful  opening  stanzas  of 
Thalaba — not  least  admirable  in  this,  the  reverential  re¬ 
serve  with  which  they  breathe  of  Scripture  truth  and 
story : 

“How  beautiful  is  night ! 

A  dewy  freshness  fills  the  silent  air; 

No  mist  obscures,  nor  cloud,  nor  speck,  nor  stain 
Breaks  the  serene  of  heaven  ; 

In  full  orbed  glory  yonder  moon  divine 
Rolls  through  the  dark  blue  depths. 

Beneath  her  steady  ray 
The  desert  circle  spreads, 

Like  the  round  ocean,  girdled  with  the  sky. 

How  beautiful  is  night ! 

Who,  at  this  untimely  hour, 

Wanders  o’er  the  desert  sands  ? 

No  station  is  in  view, 

Nor  palm-grove,  islanded  amid  the  waste. 

The  mother  and  her  child, 

The  widowed  mother,  and  the  fatherless  boy,— 

They  at  this  untimely  hour 
Wander  o’er  the  desert  sands. 


298 


LECTURE  NINTH. 


Alas !  the  setting  sun 
Saw  Zeinab  in  her  bliss, 

Hodeirah’s  wife  beloved  : 

Alas !  the  wife  beloved, 

The  fruitful  mother  late, 

Whom,  when  the  daughters  of  Arabia  named, 

They  wished  their  lot  like  hers, — 

She  wanders  o’er  the  desert-sands 
A  wretched  widow  now; 

The  fruitful  mother  of  so  fair  a  race, 

With  only  one  preserved, 

She  wanders  o’er  the  wilderness. 

No  tear  relieved  the  burthen  of  her  heart; 

Stunned  with  the  heavy  woe,  she  felt  like  one 
Half-wakened  from  a  midnight  dream  of  blood: 

But  sometimes  when  the  boy 
Would  wet  her  hand  with  tears, 

And,  looking  up  to  her  fixed  countenance, 

Sob  out  the  name  of  mother  1  then  she  groaned. 

At  length,  collecting,  Zeinab  turn’d  her  eyes 
To  heaven,  and  praised  the  Lord ; 

‘  He  gave — he  takes  away !’ 

The  pious  sufferer  cried : 

‘The  Lord  our  God  is  good !' 

*  *  *  * 

She  cast  her  eyes  around : 

Alas !  no  tents  were  there 
Beside  the  bending  sands ; 

No  palm-tree  rose  to  spot  the  wilderness ; 

The  dark  blue  sky  closed  round, 

And  rested  like  a  dome 
Upon  the  circling  waste — 

She  cast  her  eyes  around, 

Famine  and  thirst  were  there; 

And  then  the  wretched  mother  bowed  her  head 
And  wept  upon  her  child.” 

During  nearly  the  first  forty  years  of  this  century  did 
Southey  devote  himself,  as  long  as  his  powers  lasted,  to  an 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


299 


honourable  activity  in  his  country’s  literature,  associating, 
like  Scott,  in  genial  companionship  with  all  the  good 
and  great  in  the  same  cause :  the  record  of  his  life,  (his 
son  is  now  giving  it  to  the  world,)  like  the  inimitable 
biography  of  Scott,  is  not  only  a  personal  narrative,  but 
a  history  of  the  literature  of  our  times.  I  know  not 
where  you  could  look  for  that  history  so  agreeably  told  as 
in  these  two  biographies.* 


*  My  brother  was  an  earnest  admirer  of  Southey,  not  only  of  his 
prose  and  verse,  but  of  his  personal  character  as  revealed  in  his 
writings ;  and  I  well  remember  the  triumphant  pleasure  he  felt  and 
expressed  to  me  when  the  fact  was  revealed,  a  few  years  ago,  that 
Southey  was  not  responsible  for  the  ancient  acrimony  of  the  Quarterly 
Review  toward  America.  He  seemed  to  exult  that  his  favourite 
had  not  maligned  his  country.  While  he  was  in  England  last  sum¬ 
mer,  he  visited  Miss  Southej'  at  Keswick ;  and  I  am  tempted  to  make 
an  extract  from  one  of  his  letters  home,  if  only  to  illustrate  the  gentle 
habit  of  his  mind  and  current  of  his  thoughts  :  “  As  we  parted,”  he 
says,  “  Katharine  Southey  said  she  supposed  I  wished  to  see  the 
church.  I  said  we  were  on  our  way  there,  and  she  at  once  offered 
herself  and  the  children  for  an  escort  through  the  fields.  The  children, 
Edith,  and  Bertha,  and  Robert,  were  sweet,  loving,  little  bodies,  who 
kept  close  to  us  during  the  whole  visit.  A  short  walk  along  the  hedges 
— it  was  a  beautiful  day — brought  us  to  the  churchyard,  and  opposito 
the  gate.  Miss  Southey  said  sho  would  wait  for  us  and  the  children. 
They  had  a  winning,  affectionate  way,  that  would  have  charmed 
you,  of  taking  us  by  the  hand  and  leading  the  way.  We  went  into 
the  church,  and  saw  the  very  impressive  recumbent  statue  of  Southey; 
these  recumbent  monumental  figures  are  always  imposing  and  solemn, 
this  one  peculiarly  so.  The  children  then  took  us  to  Southey’s  grave. 
AVhile  there,  the  little  boy,  putting  his  hands  on  the  tomb,  said  to  his 
sister,  ‘  Edy,  who  in  here?’  and  she  told  him,  ‘  Grandfather.’  This 
did  not  seem  to  satisfy  him,  for,  coming  back,  he  renewed  his  question, 
‘  Edy,  who  in  here  ?’  and  then  she  varied  her  young  rhetoric,  and 
said,  ‘  Aunt  Katy’s  father  and  mother/  One  spoils,  I  fear,  this  prattle 
in  repeating  it,  but  on  the  spot,  and  with  all  the  asoociations,  it  was 
delightful.”  MS.  Letter,  19  June,  1854.  About  the  time  this  letter 


300 


LECTURE  NINTH. 


In  this  rapid  and  very  inadequate  view  of  contempo¬ 
rary  literature,  I  have  reserved  little  space  for  an  influ¬ 
ence  which  is  felt  most  amply  and  gratefully  where  it  is 
felt  at  all,  and  which,  in  my  belief,  will  prove  the  most 


(vas  written,  or  not  long  after,  Southey’s  second  wife,  better  known 
as  Caroline  Bowles,  died  in  a  distant  part  of  England;  and  since  her 
death  some  very  interesting  though  painful  letters  from  her,  descrip¬ 
tive  of  Southey’s  latter  days  of  fading  or  faded  intellect,  have  found 
their  way  into  the  newspapers.  I  am  tempted  to  make  short  extracts 
from  two  of  these,  dated  in  1S40,  which  seem  to  me  very  touching: 
.  .  .  .  “Nothing  gratifying,  nothing  hopeful,  have  I  now  to  tell, 
though  there  is  still  great  cause  for  thankfulness  in  continued  ex¬ 
emption  from  all  acute  pain  and  bodily  suffering;  but  I  think  thero 
is  increased  feebleness  ;  and  certainly,  from  week  to  week,  the  mental 
failure  progresses.  Spark  after  spark  goes  out  of  the  little  light  now 
left.  Yet  a  capacity  for  enjoyment  remains;  and,  God  be  thanked! 
and  in  his  way,  he  still  lives  in  his  books,  taking,  to  all  appearance, 
as  much  delight  in  them  as  ever.  I  have  no  doubt,  however,  that 
there  is  at  times  a  painful  consciousness  of  his  condition.”  .  .  .  . 
“  Of  late  my  dear  husband  has  been  less  restless  in  the  day-time, 
sitting  quietly  on  the  sofa,  turning  over  his  leaves  for  an  hour  or  two 
at  a  time,  so  that  I  have  been  able  to  occupy  myself  a  little,  as  of 
old,  with  my  pencil;  ....  and  now  my  latest  and  perhaps  last 
attempt  satisfies  even  me,  for  I  have  somehow  made  out  an  excellent 
likeness  of  that  dear  husband,  of  whom  there  has  never  yet  been 

a  resembling  portrait . Here  is  a  chapter  of  egotism,  but 

never  was  Raphael  so  contented  with  the  most  glorious  of  his  works 
as  I  with  this,  my  poor  defective  drawing.  ‘Yes,  this  me,’  was  the 
remark  of  my  dear  husband  when  I  showed  it  to  him.” 

I  cannot  refrain  from  still  farther  extending  this  note  by  a  poem 
commemorative  of  Southey  by  Landor,  which  I  find  in  the  Annual 
Register  for  1853 — a  book,  by-the-by,  let  me  say,  where  year  after 
year,  when  there  is  any  current  poetry,  beautiful  selections  are  always 
to  be  found.  It  is  quoted  from  “The  Last  Fruits  of  an  Old  Tree:” 

“  It  was  a  dream,  (ah  !  what  is  not  a  dream  ?) 

In  which  I  wandered  through  a  boundless  space 

Peopled  by  those  that  peopled  earth  erewhile. 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


301 


permanent  poetic  influence  of  these  times :  I  refer,  I  need 
hardly  add,  to  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth,  of  which,  it 
might  hatfe  been  expected,  I  should  have  made  room  to 
speak  more  at  large.  I  should  certainly  have  rejoiced  in 


But  who  conducted  me  ?  That  gentle  Power, 
Gentle  as  Death,  Death’s  brother.  On  his  brow 
Some  have  seen  poppies;  and  perhaps  among 
The  many  flowers  about  his  wavy  curls 
Poppies  there  might  be ;  roses  I  am  sure 
I  saw,  and  dimmer  amaranths  between. 

Lightly  1  thought  I  lept  across  a  grave 
Smelling  of  cool  fresh  turf,  and  sweet  it  smelt. 

I  would,  but  must  not  linger;  I  must  on, 

To  tell  my  dream  before  forgetfulness 
Sweeps  it  away,  or  breaks  or  changes  it. 

I  was  among  the  Shades,  (if  Shades  they  were,) 
And  lookt  around  me  for  some  friendly  hand 
To  guide  me  on  my  way,  and  tell  me  all 
That  compast  me  around.  I  wisht  to  find 
One  no  less  firm  or  ready  than  the  guide 
Of  Alighieri,  trustier  far  than  he, 

Higher  in  intellect,  more  conversant 
With  earth  and  heaven,  and  what  so  lies  between. 
He  stood  before  me  —  Southey.  ‘  Thou  art  he,’ 
Said  I,  ‘whom  I  was  wishing.’  ‘  That  I  know,’ 
Replied  the  genial  voice  and  radiant  eye. 

‘We  may  be  questioned,  question  we  may  not; 

For  that  might  cause  to  bubble  forth  again 
Some  bitter  spring  which  crost  the  pleasantest 
And  shadiest  of  our  paths.’  ‘  I  do  not  ask,’ 

Said  I,  ‘about  your  happiness;  I  see 
The  same  serenity  as  when  we  walkt 
Along  the  downs  of  Clifton.  Fifty  years 
Have  rolled  behind  us  since  that  summer-tide. 

Nor  thirty  fewer  since  along  the  lake 
Of  Lario,  to  Bellagio  villa-crowned, 

Thro’  the  crisp  waves  I  urged  my  sideling  bark, 
26 


S02 


LECTURE  NINTH. 


the  opportunity  of  deepening  the  sense  of  thoughtful 
admiration  and  gratitude  to  Wordsworth’s  genius  in  any 
mind  that  has  already  possessed  itself  of  the  treasures  of 
such  emotions,  and  possibly  of  persuading  some  so  to 
approach  that  poetry  as  to  find  in  it,  what  it  can  surely 
give  to  all  who  are  willing  as  well  as  worthy  to  find  it — 
a  ministry  of  wisdom  and  happiness,  both  in  the  homely 
realities  of  daily  life,  and  in  the  deepest  spiritual  recesses 
of  our  being.  But  such  a  theme  transcends  the  limits 
now  left  for  me ;  and  I  propose  therefore  only  to  notice 
two  or  three  points  having  a  connection  with  subjects  I 
have  already  had  occasion  to  speak  of.  With  regard  to 
language,  an  English  editor  of  Wordsworth  has  said, 
“By  no  great  poet,  besides  Shakspeare,  has  the  Eng¬ 
lish  tongue  been  used  with  equal  purity,  and  yet  such 
flexible  command  of  its  resources.  Spenser  gives  us  too 
many  obsolete  forms,  Milton  too  much  un-English  syntax, 
to  make  either  of  them  available  for  the  purpose  of  train- 


Amid  sweet  salutation  off  the  shore 

Prom  lordly  Milan’s  proudly  courteous  dames.’ 

‘  Landor  !  I  well  remember  it,’  said  he. 

‘I  had  just  lost  my  first-born,  only  boy, 

And  then  the  heart  is  tender;  lightest  things 
Sink  into  it,  and  dwell  there  evermore.’ 

The  words  were  not  yet  spoken  when  the  air 
Blew  balmier;  and  around  the  parent’s  neck 
An  angel  threw  his  arms  :  it  was  that  son. 

‘  Father  !  I  felt  you  wisht  me,’  said  the  boy. 

‘Behold  me  here !’ 

Gentle  the  sire’s  embrace, 
Gentle  his  tone.  ‘See  here  your  father’s  friend!’ 

He  gazed  into  my  face,  then  meekly  said, 

‘  Ho  whom  my  father  loves  hath  his  reward 
On  earth ;  a  richer  one  awaits  him  here.’  ”  W.  B.  R. 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE.  303 

ing  the  young  men  of  our  country  in  the  laws,  and 
leading  them  to  apprehend  and  revere  the  principles  of 
their  magnificent  language.  But  in  Wordsworth  .... 
is  the  English  tongue  seen  almost  in  its  perfection ;  its 
powers  of  delicate  expression,  its  flexible  idioms,  its  vast 
compass,  the  rich  variety  of  its  rhythms,  being  all  dis¬ 
played  in  the  attractive  garb  of  verse,  and  yet  with  a  most 
rigorous  conformity  to  the  laws  of  its  own  syntax.”*  This 
high  tribute  will  bear  the  test  of  close  study;  and,  let  me 
add,  that  this  admirable  command  of  the  language  is  the 
reward  of  that  dutiful  culture  which  is  a  characteristic 
of  the  poet. 

In  the  early  part  of  this  lecture,  I  had  occasion  to 
speak  of  those  miserable  poetic  sophistries  which  tempted 
men  and  women  to  think  that  there  is  magnanimity  in 
the  littlenesses  of  a  morbid  pride,  and  poetic  beauty  in 
dreary  moodiness.  It  was  Wordsworth’s  function,  with 
his  manly  wisdom,  with  the  true  feeling  of  his  full-beat¬ 
ing  heart,  and  with  the  further-reaching  vision  of  his 
imagination,  to  sweep  these  heresies  away,  showing  by  his 
own  example  that 

“A  cheerful  life  is  what  the  Muses  love, 

A  soaring  spirit  is  their  prime  delight, ”f 

and  teaching  that  lesson,  which  poetry  and  morals  alike 
should  give : 

“If  thou  be  one  whose  heart  the  holy  forms 
Of  young  imagination  have  kept  pure, 

- Henceforth  be  warned ;  and  know  that  Pride, 

Howe’er  disguised  in  its  own  majesty, 

Is  littleness;  that  he  who  feels  contempt 


*  The  advertisement  to  “Select  Pieces  from  Wordsworth,”  p.  4. 
f  Linos  left  upon  a  Seat  in  a  Yew  Tree.  Works,  p.  338. 


304 


LECTURE  NINTH. 


Fov  any  living  thing,  hath  faculties 

Which  he  has  never  used;  that  thought  with  him 

Is  in  its  infancy.  The  man  whose  eye 

Is  ever  on  himself  doth  look  on  one, 

The  least  of  Nature’s  works — one  who  might  move 
The  wise  man  to  that  scorn  which  wisdom  holds 
Unlawful  ever.  Oh  be  wiser,  thou  ; 

Instructed  that  true  knowledge  leads  to  love, 

True  dignity  abides  with  him  alone 
Who,  in  the  silent  hour  of  inward  thought, 

Can  still  suspect,  and  still  revere  himself, 

In  lowliness  of  heart.” 

I  have  also  had  occasion  to  show  how  morbid  and  danger¬ 
ous  the  love  of  innocent,  inanimate  nature  may  become 
when  it  is  linked  with  infidelity — how  it  will  sink  dowD 
into  a  vile  and  weak  materialism.  By  no  poet  that  ever  lived 
has  the  face  of  nature,  the  world  of  sight  and  sound,  from 
the  planetary  motions  in  the  heavens  down  to  the  restless 
shadow  of  the  smallest  flower,  been  so  sedulously  studied 
during  a  long  life,  and  all  the  utterance  his  poetry  gives 
of  that  study  is  meant  to  inspire 

“The  glorious  habit  by  which  sense  is  made 
Subservient  still  to  moral  purposes, 

Auxiliar  to  divine.”* 

Never,  as  in  the  sensuous  and  irreligious  poets,  is  the  ma¬ 
terial  world  suffered  to  encroach  upon  the  spiritual,  still 
less  to  get  dominion  over  it.  So  far  from  any  such  delu¬ 
sion,  observe  how, in  that  well-known  passage  in  The  Ex¬ 
cursion,  the  sublimity  of  which  is  sometimes  overlooked  in 
the  beauty  of  the  illustration,  he  proclaims  this  truth — that 
the  universe,  this  material  universe,  is  a  shell,  from  which 
the  ear  of  Faith  can  hear  mysterious  murmurings  of  the 
j)eity. 


*  Excursion,  hook  iv.  p.  432 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


305 


“I  have  seen 

A  curious  child,  who  dwelt  upon  a  tract 
Of  inland  ground,  applying  to  his  ear 
The  convolutions  of  a  smooth-lipped  shell: 

To  which,  in  silence  hushed,  his  very  soul 
Listened  intensely; — and  his  countenance  soon 
Brightened  with  joy;  for  murmurings  from  within 
Were  heard,  sonorous  cadences!  whereby, 

To  his  belief,  the  monitor  expressed 
Mysterious  union  with  its  native  sea. 

Even  such  a  shell  the  universe  itself 
Is  to  the  ear  of  Faith.’’* 

The  love  of  nature  thus  taught,  associated  -with  holy 
thoughts  and  reverent  emotions,  is  made  perpetual  enjoy¬ 
ment,  open,  too,  to  every  human  being :  and  he  who  receives 
the  poet’s  teaching  may  make  the  poet’s  words  his  own : 

“Beauty — a  living  presence  of  the  earth, 

Surpassing  the  most  fair  ideal  forms 
Which  craft  of  delicate  spirits  hath  composed 
From  earth’s  materials — waits  upon  my  steps ; 

Pitches  her  tents  before  me  as  I  move. 

An  hourly  neighbour.  Paradise,  and  groves 
Elysian,  Fortunate  Fields — like  those  of  old 
Sought  in  the  Atlantic  main — why  should  they  be 
A  history  only  of  departed  things. 

Or  a  mere  fiction  of  what  never  was  ? 

For  the  discerning  intellect  of  man, 

When  wedded  to  this  goodly  universe 
In  love  and  holy  passion,  should  find  these 
A  simple  produce  of  the  common  day.”f 

I  had  reserved  for  the  conclusion  of  this  lecture  some 
notice  of  the  female  authors  of  this  century.  Ungracious  as 
it  will  be  for  such  a  subject,  I  feel  that  I  must  give  it  a 
brevity  considerate  of  your  patience.  It  is  a  fine  cba- 


*  Excursion,  book  iv.  p.  432. 
f  Preface  to  the  Excursion,  p.  334. 
26* 


30G 


LECTURE  NINTH. 


racteristic  of  the  literature  of  our  times,  that  the  genius 
of  woman  has  shared  largely  and  honourably  in  it.  It  has 
been  so,  from  the  share  which  Joanna  Baillie  had  in  the 
restoration  of  a  more  truthful  tone  of  poetic  feeling,  and 
the  delightful  fictions  with  which  Maria  Edgeworth  used 
to  charm  our  childhood,  down  to  the  later  company  of] 
women  who  still  adorn  both  prose  and  poetic  literature. 
There  have  been  instances  of  female  authorship  in  such 
modest  retirement  that  the  world  has  not  known  them  well 
enough.  There  is  much  that  illustrates  the  gracefulness 
and  delicacy  of  the  womanly  mind,  but  over  and  above  all 
this,  and  combined  with  it,  the  literature  of  our  times  has 
developed  an  energy  which  womanly  authorship  had  not 
shown  before :  I  do  not  mean  a  masculine  energy,  but  a 
genuine  womanly  power.  Those  writers  who  are,  I  think, 
chiefly  distinguished  for  such  power,  as  well  as  beauty  of 
genius,  are  Mrs.  Jameson,  as  a  prose-writer,  and  especially 
in  her  admirable  criticisms  both  on  art  and  literature;  Mrs. 
Kemble,  Mrs.  Norton,  and  Mrs.  Browning,  formerly  Miss 
Barrett.  Indulge  me  with  a  few  minutes  more  for  an 
illustration  or  two  of  the  poetic  power  I  speak  of.  Every 
person,  probably,  after  youth  is  passed,  is  conscious  at 
some  time  of  a  deep  craving  for  repose,  for  a  tranquillity 
inward  and  outward :  this  universal  feeling  is  thus  ex¬ 
pressed  in  these  lines : 

“  But  to  be  still !  oh,  but  to  cease  a  while 
The  panting  breath  and  hurrying  steps  of  life, 

The  sights,  the  sounds,  the  struggle,  and  the  strife, 

Of  hourly  being ;  the  sharp  biting  file 
Of  action  fretting  on  the  tightened  chain 
Of  rough  existence ;  all  that  is  not  pain, 

But  utter  weariness !  oh  !  to  be  free, 

But  tor  awhile,  from  conscious  entity! 


CONTEMPORARY  LITERATURE. 


307 


To  shut  the  banging  doors  and  windows  wida 
Of  restless  sense,  and  let  the  soul  abide, 

Darkly  and  stilly,  for  a  little  space, 

Gathering  its  strength  up  to  pursue  the  race; 

Oh,  heavens  !  to  rest  a  moment,  hut  to  rest. 

From  this  quick,  gasping  life,  were  to  be  blest!”* 

It  is  an  honourable  and  characteristic  distinction  of  the 
ernale  authorship  of  the  day  that  it  has  devoted  itself,  iu 
several  forms,  to  the  cause  of  suffering  humanity. 

“Some  there  are  whose  names  will  live 
Not  in  the  memories,  but  the  hearts  of  men, 

Because  those  hearts  they  comforted  and  raised 
And  where  they  saw  God’s  images  cast  down, 

Lifted  them  up  again,  and  blew  the  dust 
From  the  worn  features  and  disfigured  limb.”f 

Would  you  know  what  might  there  is  in  the  voice  that 
speaks  from  a  woman-poet’s  full  heart,  what  power  of 
imagination  no  less  than  of  sympathy  and  pity,  find  that 
earnest  plea  which  Elizabeth  Barrett  uttered  against  the 
horrid  sacrifice  to  Mammon,  which  was  once  the  shame  of 
Britain’s  factories.  It  is  entitled  “  The  Cry  of  the  Chil¬ 
dren.”  I  quote  only  the  opening  and  closing  stanzas: 

“  Do  ye  hear  the  children  weeping,  0  my  brothers, 

Ere  the  sorrow  comes  with  years  ? 

They  are  leaning  their  young  heads  against  their  mothers, 

And  that  cannot  stop  their  tears. 

The  young  lambs  are  bleating  in  the  meadows, 

The  young  birds  are  chirping  in  the  nest, 

The  young  fawns  are  playing  with  the  shadows, 

The  young  flowers  are  blowing  toward  the  West; 


*  Poems  by  Frances  Anne  Kemble,  p.  151. 

■(•  Landor’s  Lines  to  “  The  Author  of  Mary  Barton,”  in  the  Examiner, 
March  17,  1349. 


80S 


LECTURE  NINTH. 


But  the  young,  young  children,  0  my  brothers, 

They  are  weeping  bitterly ; 

They  are  weeping  in  the  playtime  of  the  others, 

In  the  country  of  the  free. 

*  *  ■*  *  * 

They  look  up  with  their  pale  and  sunken  faces, 

.And  their  look  is  dread  to  see, 

For  you  think  you  see  their  angels  in  their  places, 

With  eyes  meant  for  Deity; 

‘How  long,’  they  say,  ‘how  long,  0  cruel  nation, 

Will  you  stand,  to  move  the  world,  on  a  child’s  heart, 

Stifle  down  with  a  mailed  heel  its  palpitation, 

And  tread  onward  to  your  throne  amid  the  mart? 

Our  blood  splashes  upward,  0  our  tyrants, 

And  your  purple  shows  your  path : 

But  the  child’s  sob  curseth  deeper  in  the  silence 
Than  the  strong  man  in  his  wrath  1’  ” 

I  am  loth  to  leave  so  stern  a  strain  of  impassioned  verse 
the  last  in  your  minds :  she  speaks  with  as  genuine,  but 
a  gentler,  voice  of  poetic  power  in  the  lines  entitled 
‘‘Patience  Taught  by  Nature:” 

“ '  0  dreary  life  !’  we  cry,  ‘  0  dreary  life !’ 

And  still  the  generations  of  the  birds 

Sing  through  our  sighing,  and  the  flocks  and  herds 

Serenely  live,  while  we  are  keeping  strife, 

With  heaven’s  true  purpose  in  us,  as  a  knife 
Against  which  we  may  struggle.  Ocean  girds, 

Unslackened,  the  dry  land :  savannah  swards 
Unweary  sweep:  hills  watch  unworn ;  and  rife, 

Meek  leaves  drop  yearly  from  the  forest  trees, 

To  show,  above,  the  unwasted  stars  that  pass 
In  their  old  glory.  0  thou  God  of  old  ! 

Grant  me  some  smaller  grace  than  comes  to  these ; 

But  so  much  patience,  a3  a  blade  of  grass 
Grows  by,  contented  through  the  heat  and  cold.”* 


*  Mrs.  E.  Barrett  Browning’s  Poems,  vol.  i.  p.  342. 


LECTURE  X. 


STraglc  anir  tfiligiac  |lottrg.* 

Jontrastof  subjee;s,  serious  and  gay — Tragic  poetry — Elustrated  in  his¬ 
tory — Death  of  the  first-born — Clarendon’s  raising  the  standard  at 
Nottingham — Moral  use  of  tragic  poetry — Allston’s  criticism — Ele¬ 
giac  poetry — Its  power  not  mere  sentimentalism — Gray’s  Elegy,  an 
universal  poem — Philip  Van  Artevelde — Caroline  Bowles — “Pau¬ 
per’s  Death  Bed” — Wordsworth’s  Elegies — Milton’s  Lycidas — Ado- 
nais — In  Memoriam— Shelley’s  Poem  on  Death  of  Keats — Tennyson 
— In  Memoriam  reviewed. 

The  two  lectures  I  am  about  to  deliver  relate  to  sub¬ 
jects  aside  from  the  continuous  course  just  completed. 
They  are,  however,  illustrative  of  it,  though  not  part  of 
it ;  and  therefore,  I  hope,  not  inappropriate  or  unwelcome. 
The  first  lecture  relates  to  the  literature  of  tragedy  and 
sorrow,  the  second  to  the  literature  of  wit  and  humour; 
whether  I  shall  add  another  to  this  brief  supplementary 
course  will  depend  on  personal  considerations  which  I  need 
not  now  refer  to.  It  is  not  necessary,  I  hope,  for  me  to 
disclaim,  in  this  arrangement  of  two  of  these  lectures,  all 
attempts  at  the  mere  effect  of  contrast,  for  it  is  no  ambi- 


*  The  course  of  lectures  delivered  in  1850  terminated  with  the 
Ninth,  on  Contemporary  Literature.  Those  that  follow,  together  with 
one  on  Wordsworth’s  Prelude,  were  prepared  in  March,  1851.  I  have 
thought  it  best  to  add  them  to  this  course,  as,  in  a  certain  degree,  illus¬ 
trative  of  the  general  subject  of  English  Literature.  The  one  on  the 
Prelude  was  rather  the  introduction  of  a  new  poem  to  those  who  had 
never  read  it,  than  a  criticism  on  one  that  was  familiar.  It  mainly 
consisted  of  extracts,  with  brief  comment.  On  this  account  I  do  not 
think  it  worth  while  now  to  reproduce  it.  W.  B.  R. 

U  309 


S10 


LECTURE  TENTH. 


tion  of  mine  to  catch  the  attention  of  my  hearers  by  any 
such  artifice,  or  to  startle  them  with  an  antithesis  of  sub¬ 
jects.  My  purpose  in  placing,  immediately  after  the 
serious  subjects  of  the  first  lecture,  the  literature  of  Wit 
and  Humour,  was  rather  to  show  that  the  transition  need 
not  be  a  violent  one;  that  there  may  be  found  in  litera¬ 
ture  a  response  to  the  sad  and  solemn  feelings  of  our 
nature,  and  also  for  its  happy  and  joyous  emotions;  and 
that  over  both  these  departments  of  letters  there  may  be 
seen  shining  the  same  moral  light.  I  have  set  these  sub¬ 
jects,  apparently  so  different,  in  close  continuity,  in  the 
hope  of  thus  proving  the  completeness  of  such  companion¬ 
ship  as  books  can  add  to  that  between  living  human 
beings — a  companionship  for  life,  in  shadow  or  in  sunshine; 
in  the  hope  of  showing  that  there  is  a  wisdom  in  books 
which  holds  genial  and  restorative  communion  with  tears 
and  a  sorrowing  spirit,  and  no  less  genial  and  salutary 
with  that  other  attribute  of  humanity,  smiles  and  a  cheer¬ 
ful  heart.  Thus  there  may  be  a  discipline  for  faculties 
and  powers  too  often  fitfully  or  unequally  indulged  or 
cultivated — a  discipline  of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  which 
are  associated  with  the  sorrows  of  life,  and  no  less  of  those 
which  have  fellowship  with  its  joys  and  merriment:  for 
those  who  are  docile  to  receive,  or  sedulous  to  seek  them, 
there  are  lessons  which  teach  a  sanity  of  sadness  and  also 
a  sanity  of  gladness.  It  is,  too,  a  ministry  of  human  sym¬ 
pathy;  for  as  it  explores  the  sources  of  genuine  grief  and 
joy,  it  not  only  helps  us  the  better  to  know  our  own 
hearts,  but  to  enter  into  the  feelings  that  are  in  the  hearts 
of  our  fellow-beings,  and  thus  to  “  rejoice  with  them  that 
do  rejoice,  and  weep  with  them  that  weep.” 

Tragic  poetry  has  been  well  described  as  “  poetry  in 


TRAGIC  POETRY. 


31*. 

its  deepest  earnest.”  The  upper  air  of  poetry  is  the 
atmosphere  of  sorrow.  This  is  a  truth  attested  by  every 
department  of  art,  the  poetiy  of  words,  of  music,  of  the 
canvas,  and  of  marble.  It  is  so,  because  poetry  is  a  re¬ 
flection  of  life;  and  when  a  man  weeps,  the  passions  that 
are  stirring  within  him  are  mightier  than  the  feelings 
which  prompt  to  cheerfulness  or  merriment.  The  smile 
plays  on  the  countenance  :  the  laugh  is  a  momentary  and 
noisy  impulse;  but  the  tear  rises  slowly  and  silently  from 
the  deep  places  of  the  heart.  It  is  at  once  the  symbol 
and  the  relief  of  an  o’ermastering  grief,  it  is  the  language 
of  emotions  to  which  words  cannot  give  utterance :  pas¬ 
sions,  whose  very  might  and  depth  give  them  a  sanctity, 
we  instinctively  recognise  by  veiling  them  from  the  com¬ 
mon  gaze.  In  childhood,  indeed,  when  its  little  griefs  and 
joys  are  blended  with  that  absence  of  self-consciousness, 
which  is  both  the  bliss  and  the  beauty  of  its  innocence, 
tears  are  shed  without  restraint  or  disguise  :  but  when  the 
self-consciousness  of  manhood  has  taught  us  that  tears  are 
the  expression  of  emotions  too  sacred  for  exposure,  the 
heart  will  often  break  rather  than  violate  this  instinct  of 
our  nature.  Tragic  poetry,  in  dramatic,  or  epic,  or  what 
form  soever,  has  its  original,  its  archetype  in  the  sorrows, 
which  float  like  clouds  over  the  days  of  human  existence. 
ASlictions  travel  across  the  earth  on  errands  mysterious, 
but  merciful,  could  we  but  understand  them  :  and  the 
poet,  fashioning  the  likeness  of  them  in  some  sad  story, 
teaches  the  imaginative  lesson  of  their  influences  upon 
the  heart. 

In  history,  what  is  there  so  impressive  as  when  the  his¬ 
toric  muse,  speaking  with  the  voice  of  the  tragic  muse, 
tells  of  terror  and  of  woe  ?  If  science  teaches  that  this 


LECTURE  TENTH. 


*f  * 

earth  of  ours  is  a  shining  planet,  the  records  of  history 
as  surely  teach  that  it  rolls  through  the  spaces  of  the 
firmament,  stained  with  blood  and  tears.  So  has  it  ever 
been.  In  the  annals  of  the  ancient  dynasty  of  Egypt, 
what  is  there  like  that  tragic  midnight,  when  the  first¬ 
born  of  the  land  were  smitten,  “from  the  first-horn  of 
I’haraoh  that  sat  on  the  throne,  unto  the  first-born  of  the 
captive  that  was  in  the  dungeon  what  in  the  chronicles 
of  Babylon,  like  that  tragic  hour,  when  there  came  forth 
the  fingers  of  a  man’s  hand,  and  wrote  upon  the  palace  wall 
an  empire’s  doom  ?  In  classic  story,  what  rises  up  to  the 
memory  more  readily  than  the  heroic  sacrifice  in  the  tragic 
pass  of  Thermopylae?  What  pages  in  the  annals  of 
our  fatherland  have  a  deeper  interest  than  when  the 
career  of  King  Charles  turned  to  tragedy,  when  gloom 
was  gathering  over  his  fortunes,  from  the  day  when  the 
royal  standard  was  raised  at  Nottingham,  and  ominously 
cast  down  in  a  stormy  and  unruly  night,  onward  to  the 
bloody  atonement  on  the  scaffold.*  In  the  history  of 

*  Clarendon’s  celebrated  description  of  the  raising  of  the  standard 
of  Charles  the  First,  at  Nottingham,  cannot  be  too  often  quoted.  It  is 
very  grand  and  very  sad. 

“According  to  the  proclamation,”  says  the  historian,  “upon  the 
twenty-fifth  day  of  August  (1642)  the  standard  was  erected  about  six 
of  the  clock  of  the  evening  of  a  very  stormy  and  tempestuous  day. 
The  king  himself,  with  a  small  train,  rode  to  the  top  of  the  castle-hill; 
Varney,  the  knight-marshal,  who  was  standard-bearer,  carrying  the 
standard,  which  was  then  erected  in  that  place,  with  little  other  cere¬ 
mony  than  the  sound  of  drums  and  trumpets :  melancholy  men  dis¬ 
cerned  many  ill  presages  about  that  time.  There  was  not  one  regi¬ 
ment  of  foot  yet  levied  and  brought  thither;  so  that  the  trained  bands 
which  the  sheriff  had  drawn  together  was  all  the  strength  the  king 
had  for  his  person  or  the  guard  of  the  standard.  There  appeared  no 
conflux  of  men  in  obedience  to  the  proclamation  :  the  arms  and  nmmu- 


TRAGIC  POETRY. 


313 


France,  what  passage  is  there  so  impressive — as  gathering 
into  one  awful  moment  a  consummation  of  a  long  antiquity, 
and  casting  a  dark  shadow  over  the  future — as  that  which 
tells  of  the  descendant  of  sixty  kings,  laid  bound,  hand 
and  foot,  beneath  the  glittering  axe  ?  And  in  our  own 
history,  what  is  there  so  sublime,  as  when  the  young 
nation  was  baptized  in  blood  on  its  first  battle-field  ? 

What  has  been  finely  called  “  the  power  and  divinity 
of  suffering”  is  shown  also  in  the  moral  interest  which 
clings  to  spots  sacred  by  the  memory  of  affliction — an  inte¬ 
rest  which  prosperous  grandeur  cannot  boast  of.  A 
thoughtful  traveller  has  thus  expressed  the  feeling  on 
visiting  the  palace  of  the  Doges  at  Venice:  “It  is  a 
strange  building  with  its  multitudinous  little  marble 
columns  and  grotesque  windows,  and  the  giant  staircase 
all  glorious  of  the  purest  Carrara  marble,  carved  and  chi¬ 
selled  into  ornaments  of  the  most  beautiful  minuteness.  A 
splendid  palace  indeed  it  is :  yet,  while  my  eye  wandered 
in  a  few  minutes  over  the  gorgeous  part  of  the  structure, 
it  was  long  riveted  with  undiminished  interest  upon  the 
little  round  holes  close  to  the  level  of  the  sullen  canal 
beneath  the  Bridge  of  Sighs — holes  which  marked  the 
passages  to  the  dungeons  beneath  the  level  of  the  canal, 
where,  for  years,  the  victims  of  that  wicked  merchant- 
republic  were  confined. 


nition  were  not  yet  come  from  York,  and  a  general  sadness  covered 
the  whole  town,  and  the  king  himself  appeared  more  melancholic  than 
he  used  to  be.  The  standard  itself  was  blown  down  the  same  night  it 
had  been  set  up,  by  a  very  strong  and  unruly  wind,  and  could  not  be 
fixed  again  in  a  day  or  two,  till  the  tempest  was  allayed.  This  was 
the  melancholy  state  of  the  king's  affairs  when  the  standard  was  set 
up.”  history  of  the  Rebellion,  book  v.  p.  308.  W.  B.  R. 

27 


t 


LECTURE  TENTH. 


“  And  why  is  it  that  suffering  should  have  a  spell  to 
fi*.  the  eye  above  the  power  of  beauty  or  of  greatness  ?  Is 
it  because  the  cross  is  a  religion  of  suffering,  a  faith  of  suf¬ 
fering,  a  privilege  of  suffering,  a  perfection  arrived  at  by  and 
through  suffering  only?  Half  an  hour  was  enough  for 
the  ducal  palace.  I  could  gaze  for  hours  upon  those  dun¬ 
geon-holes,  gaze  and  read  there,  as  in  an  exhaustless  volume, 
histories  of  silent,  weary  suffering,  as  it  filed  the  soft  heart 
of  man  away,  attenuated  his  reason  into  a  dull  instinct, 
or  cracked  the  stout  heart  as  you  would  shiver  a  flint. 

“There  is  seldom  a  line  of  glory  written  upon  the 
earth’s  face,  but  a  line  of  suffering  runs  parallel  with  it; 
and  they  that  read  the  lustrous  syllables  of  the  one,  and 
stoop  not  to  decypher  the  spotted  and  worn  inscription  of 
the  other,  get  the  least  half  of  the  lesson  earth  has  to 
give.”* 

Lord  Bacon,  in  one  of  those  essays  in  which  he  has  so 
sententiously  compacted  his  deep  thoughts,  said,  “  Pros¬ 
perity  is  the  blessing  of  the  Old  Testament;  adversity  is 
the  blessing  of  the  New,  which  carrieth  the  greater  bene¬ 
diction  and  the  clearer  revelation  of  God’s  favour.  Yet 
even  in  the  Old  Testament,  if  you  listen  to  David’s  harp, 
you  shall  hear  as  many  hearse-like  airs  as  carols  :  and  the 
pencils  of  the  Holy  Ghost  have  laboured  more  in  describ¬ 
ing  the  afflictions  of  Job  than  the  felicities  of  Solomon. ”f 

The  moral  use  of  tragic  poetry  consists  then  in  such 
employment  of  poetic  truth  that  the  poet’s  sad  imaginings 
shall  serve  to  chasten,  to  elevate,  and  to  strengthen  the 


*  Sights  and  Thoughts  in  Foreign  Churches  and  among  Foreign 
Peoples;  by  Frederick  William  Faber,  M.  A.  p.  285,  288. 
f  Essay  on  Adversity. 


TRAGIC  POETRY. 


315 


30ul — a  moral  ministry  which  justified  as  sage  and  solemn 
a  spirit  as  Milton’s  in  speaking  of  “  the  lofty,  grave  trage¬ 
dians,”  and  styling  them  “teachers  best  of  moral  pru¬ 
dence,  high  actions  and  high  passions  best  describ¬ 
ing.”*  And  the  great  critic  of  antiquity,  with  all  the 
sublime  solemnities  of  his  country’s  tragic  drama  in  his 
thoughts,  in  the  presence,  as  it  were  of  that  spectral  mys¬ 
tery  of  fate,  which  overshadowed  the  Athenian  stage,  has 
told  us  that  “  Tragic  poetry  is  the  imitation  of  serious 
action,  employing  pity  and  terror  for  the  purpose  of  chas¬ 
tening  the  passions.” 

This  discipline,  however,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind,  can 
have  no  practical  influence  on  character,  if  it  accomplish 
nothing  more  than  the  production  of  emotions,  instead  of 
being  carried  on  into  action;  for  it  is  a  great  law  of  our 
moral  being  that  feelings,  no  matter  how  amiable  and  vir¬ 
tuous,  will  surely  perish,  if  they  be  not  converted  into 
active  principles;  nay,  they  may  coexist  with  conduct  the 
most  selfish  and  unfeeling;  there  may  be  a  worthless 
sentimentalism  utterly  delusive  and  negative,  and  this, 
by  due  transition,  may  pass  into  odious  self-indulgence,  or 
still  more  odious  inhumanity.  In  the  worst  days  of  the 
French  lie  volution,  the  very  men  who  in  the  theatres 
applauded  the  heroic  sentiments  in  the  tragedies  of  Cor¬ 
neille,  and  were  melted  even  to  tears  by  the  pathos  of 
Racine,  rose  upon  the  morrow’s  morn  to  join  in  the  fero¬ 
cious  cries  for  blood  that  echoed  in  the  streets  of  Paris. 

And  further,  if  this  example  shows  how  worthless  and 
wicked  mere  sentimentalism  may  be,  self-indulgent  in  the 
luxury  of  ideal  woe,  it  also  shows  that  the  sight  of  actual 


*  Paradise  Regained,  book  iv.  v.  261. 


316 


LECTURE  TENTH. 


Buffering  may  obliterate  all  sympathy,  and  harden  tho 
heart  by  familiarity  with  human  distress  or  agony  looked 
on  as  a  spectacle.  Now  it  is  the  function  of  art,  through 
whatever  medium  it  addresses  the  heart,  so  to  transfigure 
the  tragic  realities  of  life,  as  to  make  the  contemplation 
of  them  endurable  and  salutary,  which  otherwise  would 
be  appalling,  repulsive,  and,  if  repeated,  destructive  of 
true  sensibility.  That  wise  artist,  the  late  Washington 
Allston,  speaking  with  the  truest  philosophy  of  his  art 
and  of  human  nature,  said  it  is  “  through  the  transform¬ 
ing  atmosphere  of  the  imagination  (that)  alone  the  sad¬ 
dest  notes  of  woe,  even  the  appalling  shriek  of  despair, 
are  softened,  as  it  were,  by  the  tempering  dews  of  this 
visionary  region,  ere  they  fall  upon  the  heart.  Else  how 
could  we  stand  the  smothered  moan  of  Desdemona,  or  the 
fiendish  adjuration  of  Lady  Macbeth,  more  frightful 
even  than  the  after-deed  of  her  husband,  or  look  upon  the 
agony  of  the  wretched  Judas,  in  the  terrible  picture  of 
Rembrandt,  when  he  returns  the  purchase  of  blood  to  the 
impenetrable  Sanhedrim  ?  Ay,  how  could  we  ever  stand 
these  but  for  that  ideal  panoply  through  which  we  feel 
only  their  modified  vibrations  ?  Let  the  imitation  be  so 
close  as  to  trench  on  deception,  the  effect  will  be  far  differ¬ 
ent.  I  remember,”  adds  Mr  Allston,  “a  striking  instance 
of  this  in  a  celebrated  actress,  whose  copies  of  actual  suf¬ 
fering  were  so  painfully  accurate,  that  I  was  forced  to  turn 
away  from  the  scene,  unable  to  endure  it;  her  scream  of 
agony  in  Bekvidera  seemed  to  ring  in  my  ears  for  hours 
after.  Not  so  was  it  with  the  great  Mrs.  Siddons,  who 
moved  not  a  step  but  in  a  poetic  atmosphere,  through 
which  the  fiercer  passions  seemed  rather  to  loom  like  dis- 


ELEGIAC  POETRY. 


317 


tant  mountains  when  first  descried  at  sea,  massive  and 
solid,  yet  resting  on  air.”* 

I  pass  from  these  brief  hints,  scarcely  worthy  of  a  place 
in  a  lecture  on  tragic  poetry,  to  that  kindred  species  which 
is  found  in  the  literatures  of  all  nations,  and  which  is  en¬ 
titled  Elegiac  Poetry.  Serving,  as  all  true  poetry  does,  for 
a  ministry  and  discipline  of  feeling,  it  could  not  neglect 
that  one  form  of  affliction  which  sooner  or  later  comes  to 
every  human  being — sorrow  for  the  dead.  The  phases  of 
this  emotion  are  as  various  as  the  heart  or  the  counte¬ 
nance.  With  some  it  is  impetuous  and  turbulent,  stormy 
as  a  cloud,  hut  it  pours  down  its  shower,  and  then  its  form 
changes  and  it  melts  away,  no  one  can  tell  whither.  The 
passion  sometimes  is  proud  and  self-willed  and  rebellious: 
or  it  is  moody  and  sinks  into  sullenness.  Again,  it  is 
gentle  and  resigned,  and  easy  to  be  entreated.  Some¬ 
times  it  is  social,  and  delights  in  the  relief  of  utterance 
and  sympathy.  With  others  it  holds  no  communion  with 
speech  or  tears,  hut  dwells  in  the  depths  of  the  silent 
heart.  The  poet,  as  an  interpreter  and  guide  of  humanity, 
and  especially  as  always  raising  the  mind  of  man  above 
the  pressure  of  tangible  and  temporal  things  into  the 
region  of  the  spiritual  and  the  immortal,  finds  one  of  his 
worthiest  duties  in  training  this  species  of  sorrow  into  the 
paths  of  wisdom.  In  the  small  space  now  at  my  com¬ 
mand,  I  can  attempt  to  notice  only  a  few  of  the  truths 
that  the  poets  in  their  elegies  have  taught.  Let  me  first 
say,  that  there  is  a  spurious  form  of  elegiac  poetry,  which 
might  be  dismissed  with  a  word  of  pity  rather  than  of  con- 


*  I  am  unablo  to  verify  this  citation  from  Allston.  W.  B.  K. 
27* 


318 


LECTURE  TENTH. 


demnation,  was  it  not  a  counterfeit  of  that  genuine  grief 
which  is  wronged  by  the  imitation.  I  refer  to  that  form 
which  is  the  expression  of  unreal  and  subtly  selfish  senti¬ 
mentalism,  which  is  not  too  strongly  condemned  when  it 
is  spoken  of  as  “  a  base  lust  of  the  mind,  which  indulges 
in  the  excitement  of  contemplating  its  own  emotion,  or 
that  of  others,  for  the  excitement’s  sake.”*  Such  senti¬ 
ment  is  often  ostentatious,  obtrusive, and  factitious;  and  real 
grief  recoils  from  it  into  a  deeper  seclusion.  But  where 
the  feelings  are  truthful,  and  poetry  gives  them  worthy 
form,  their  truth  is  proved  by  the  prompt  and  the  uni¬ 
versal  response.  What  else  can  explain  the  large  accep¬ 
tation  which  a  poem  like  Gray’s  Elegy  in  a  Country 
Churchyard  found  at  once,  and  finds  to  this  day,  not  only 
wherever  English  words  are  known,  but  by  translation 
into  more  languages  than  any  English  poem  has  ever  been 
turned  into.  Indeed,  throughout  our  thoughtful  English 
poetry,  the  duty  has  ever  been  worthily  recognised  of  up¬ 
holding  the  communion  between  the  living  and  the  dead, 
and  of  so  disciplining  sorrow  that  it  shall  not  be  a  dreary, 
self-indulgent,  self-consuming  sentiment,  but  a  moral  power, 
diffusing  purity  and  wisdom,  and  dwelling  in  the  high 
places  of  humanity.  English  poetry  often  speaks  in  the 
spirit  of  the  elegy,  though  it  may  not  assume  the  form  of 
it.  In  that  grand  historical  poem,  “ Philip  Van  Arta- 
velde,”  when  the  hero,  alluding  to  a  stirring  and  disturbed 
condition  of  society,  says, 

“  Lightly  is  life  laid  down  amongst  us  now, 

And  lightly  is  death  mourned — 

We  have  not  time  to  mourn 


*  North  British  Review,  vol.  xiii.  p.  551. 


ELEGIAC  P0ETEY. 


SI9 


his  old  preceptor,  Friar  John,  makes  answer  in  words  that 
contain  the  whole  philosophy  of  elegiac  poetry : 

“  The  worse  for  us ! 

He  that  lacks  time  to  mourn,  lacks  time  to  mend. 

Eternity  mourns  that.  ’Tis  an  ill  cure 

For  life’s  worst  ills,  to  have  no  time  to  feel  them. 

Where  sorrow’s  held  intrusive  and  turned  out, 

There  wisdom  will  not  enter,  nor  true  power. 

Nor  aught  that  dignifies  humanity. 

Yet  such  the  barrenness  of  busy  life  !” 

It  is  the  theme  of  the  elegiac  poet  to  show  these  virtues 
of  sorrow,  its  power  to  strengthen,  to  purify,  to  elevate, 
and  to  give  moral  freedom — its  strength  to  consume  the 
small  troubles  which  so  often  waste  and  weaken  our  best 
powers.  For  this  the  poet  needs  the  genius  to  look  into 
the  deepest  and  most  mysterious  parts  of  the  human  soul, 
to  sympathize  with  its  most  acute  sensibilities,  and  to 
illustrate  all  the  consolatory  agencies  which  are  vouch¬ 
safed  to  man.  In  the  first  place,  the  poetic  power  may  do 
a  salutary  work,  by  restoring  a  just  sense  of  the  awfulness 
of  death — a  sense  so  apt  to  grow  callous,  especially  in  large 
cities,  where  the  solemnities  of  the  grave  are  a  trivial 
spectacle.*  The  heart  loses  some  of  its  most  natural  and 
purest  sensibilities  when  it  becomes  indifferent  to  the  aspect 
of  any  of  the  circumstances  or  forms  of  death.  An  elegy 
on  a  pauper’s  death-bed  was  made  to  express  these  truths : 

“  Tread  softly — how  the  head, 

In  reverent  silence  bow — 

No  passing  bell  doth  toll; 

Yet  an  immortal  soul 
Is  passing  now. 

*  History  tells,  on  more  occasions  than  one,  that  one  of  the  moral 
evils  which  follow  in  the  path  of  pestilence,  is  that  men  are  brutalized 
by  the  common  sight  of  the  dead  and  the  dying.  H.  R. 


820 


LECTURE  TENTH. 


Stranger !  however  great. 

With  lowly  reverence  how : 

There’s  one  in  that  poor  shed. 

One  by  that  paltry  bed, 

Greater  than  thou. 

Beneath  that  beggar’s  roof, 

Lo!  Death  doth  keep  his  state: 

Enter — no  crowds  attend — 

Enter — no  guards  defend 
This  palace-gate. 

That  pavement  damp  and  cold 
No  smiling  courtiers  tread; 

One  silent  woman  stands, 

Lifting  with  meagre  hands 
A  dying  head. 

No  mingling  voices  sound — 

An  infant  wail  alone  ; 

A  sob  suppressed — again 
That  short,  deep  gasp,  and  then 
The  parting  groan. 

Oh  !  change — oh  !  wondrous  change— 

Burst  are  the  prison  bars — 

This  moment  there,  so  low 
So  agonized,  and  now 
Beyond  the  stars ! 

Oh  !  change — stupendous  change  ! 

There  lies  the  soulless  clod : 

The  sun  eternal  breaks, 

The  new  immortal  wakes — 

Wakes  with  his  God.”'* 

There  might  he  gathered  from  English  poetry  large  and 
wise  discipline  of  all  the  emotions  with  which  the  living 
render  homage  unto  the  dead;  and  the  thoughtful  student 
would  find  his  recompense  in  it.  The  laments  of  Spen- 


Tbe  Birth-day,  and  other  Poems,  by  Caroline  Bowles,  p.  227. 


ELEGIAC  POETRY. 


321 


ser  are  full  of  the  tender  sensitiveness  of  that  gentle  hard : 
the  class  of  poems  which  Wordsworth  has  left  under  the 
title  of  Elegies  abound  in  the  “  true  poetic  teaching  of 
wise,  strong-hearted  Christian  sorrow."  I  must,  however, 
confine  myself  to  three  elegiac  poems,  the  most  remark¬ 
able  in  our  language:  Milton’s  “Lycidas,"  Shelley’s 
“  Adonais,"  and  Mr.  Tennyson’s  “  In  Memoriam.”  These 
poems  may  well  be  grouped  together  from  the  similarity 
of  the  occasions,  and  for  the  high,  the  varied  imaginative 
power  displayed  in  them.  Each  is  a  lament  over  the 
death  of  a  friend  of  high  intellectual  and  moral  promise, 
cr11  'd  away  in  early  manhood.  The  “Lycidas”  is  fash- 
io  1  in  a  great  degree  by  the  spirit  of  classical  elegy:  the 
element  of  Christian  belief  present,  however,  in  it.  In 
Shelley’s  poem  on  the  death  of  Keats  the  classical  form 
is  yet  more  manifest  in  purposed  imitations  of  the  Greek 
elegies.*  That  unhappy  enthusiast,  Shelley,  with  all  his 
purity  of  character  and  loftiness  of  genius,  could  couple 
with  classical  imagery  only  the  reveries  of  a  bewildered 
unbelief.  There  is,  in  reading  his  poem,  a  feeling  of 
deeper  sorrow  for  the  poet  that  wrote  than  for  him  that  was 
lamented.  The  highest  consolation,  his  fine  imagination 


*  My  attention  has  been  specially  called  to  the  extent  of  these  imi¬ 
tations,  by  a  list  of  parallel  passages  in  the  Greek  elegies,  prepared 
by  two  of  my  former  pupils,  who  have  preserved  their  zeal  for  litera¬ 
ture,  ancient  and  modern,  amid  their  professional  studies.  H.  R. 

The  accomplished  scholars  to  whom  my  brother  refers,  are  William 
Arthur  Jackson  and  G.  Hermann  Robinett.  Mr.  Jackson  has  kindly 
placed  at  my  disposal  his  notes  on  these  parallelisms,  and  I  regret 
that  I  have  not  room  to  print  them  here.  Let  me  add,  for  I  shall  have 
no  other  chance  of  noting  it,  that  my  brother  felt  very  high  pride  in 
the  scholars  of  the  University,  who,  having  been  reared  by  him,  had 
not  forgotten  his  precepts  or  their  early  studies.  W.  B.  R. 


322 


LECTURE  TENTH. 


can  reach  to,  is  that  his  dead  friend  lives  as  a  portion  of 
the  universe : 

“  He  is  made  one  with  nature :  there  is  heard 
His  voice  in  all  her  music,  from  the  moan 
Of  thunder,  to  the  song  of  night’s  sweet  bird; 

He  is  a  presence  to  be  felt  and  known 
In  darkness  and  in  light,  from  herb  and  stone, 

Spreading  itself  where’er  that  power  may  move, 

Which  has  withdrawn  his  being  to  its  own ; 

Which  wields  the  world  with  never-wearied  love, 

Sustains  it  from  beneath,  and  kindles  it  above. 

He  is  a  portion  of  the  loveliness 
Which  once  he  made  more  lovely.” 

These  are  at  best  but  dreary  speculations;  and  when 
the  poet,  in  spite  of  himself,  is  carried  out  of  them  by  an 
instinctive  belief  in  individual  life  beyond  the  grave, 
instead  of  that  absorption  into  nature  which  would  be 
annihilation,  he  rises  into  that  grand  strain  on  the  unful¬ 
filled  promise  of  the  genius  of  Keats  : 

“The  inheritors  of  unfulfilled  renown 
Rose  from  their  thrones,  built  beyond  mortal  thought, 

Far  in  the  unapparent.  Chatterton 
Rose  pale,  his  solemn  agony  had  not 
Yet  faded  from  him;  Sidney  as  he  fought, 

And  as  he  fell,  and  as  he  lived,  and  loved, 

Sublimely  mild,  a  spirit  without  spot, 

Arose ;  and  Lucan,  by  his  death  approved : 

Oblivion,  as  they  rose,  shrank  like  a  thing  reproved. 

And  many  more  whose  names  on  earth  are  dark, 

But  whose  transmitted  effiuenee  cannot  die 
So  long  as  fire  outlives  the  parent  spark, 

Rose,  robed  in  dazzling  immortality. 

‘  Thou  art  become  as  one  of  us,’  they  cry, 

‘  It  was  for  thee  yon  kingless  sphere  has  long 
Swung  blind  in  unascended  majesty, 

Silent,  alone,  amid  a  heaven  of  song : 

Assume  thy  winged  throne,  thou  vesper  of  our  throng !’ " 


ELEGIAC  POETRY. 


323 


The  gloom  which  envelopes  this  poem  is  deepened  by 
the  impressive  anticipation  of  Shelley’s  own  death,  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  coincidences  to  be  found  in  literature. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  he  set  sail  in  his  small  boat 
from  the  coast  of  Genoa,  was  overtaken  at  some  distance 
from  shore  by  a  Mediterranean  thunder-storm,  and 
ingulfed  in  the  deep  waters :  they  who  had  watched  the 
little  skiff  from  the  shore,  saw  it  disappear  in  the  dark¬ 
ness  of  the  storm  that  struck  it,  and  when  the  storm 
cleared  away,  it  was  seen  no  more.  The  lament  over 
Keats — “  Adonais”  as  Shelley  styled  him — written  about 
two  years  before,  ended  with  this  stanza — 

“  The  breath  whose  might  I  have  invoked  in  song, 

Descends  on  me ;  my  spirit’s  bark  is  driven 
Far  from  the  shore,  far  from  the  trembling  throng, 

Whose  sails  were  never  to  the  tempest  given ; 

The  massy  earth  and  sphered  skies  are  riven  ! 

I  am  borne  darkly,  fearfully,  afar; 

While  burning  through  the  inmost  veil  of  heaven, 

The  soul  of  Adonais,  like  a  star, 

Beacons  from  the  abode  where  the  Eternal  are.” 

The  poem,  or  rather  series  of  poems,  of  Mr.  Tennyson 
is,  however,  in  all  respects  the  most  important  contribution 
which  has  yet  been  given  to  this  department  of  poetry ; 
and  I  regret  that  I  have  left  me  but  a  very  little  space  for 
a  few  words  on  the  character  of  the  book.  It  is  no  prompt 
and  passionate  poetic  utterance  of  grief;  but  has  a  higher 
authority  on  account  of  the  reserve  of  near  twenty  years 
which  distinguishes  it.  Young  Hallam,  the  son  of  the 
historian,  to  whose  memory  the  work  is  a  tribute,  died  in 
1833,  at  a  distance  from  home — (in  the  poet’s  own  words : ) 

“  In  Vienna’s  fatal  walls 
God’s  finger  touched  him,  and  he  slept;” 


324 


LECTURE  TENTH. 


and  it  was  not  until  1850  that  the  poet  made  the  world 
a  sharer  in  these  imaginings,  composed  at  various  inter¬ 
vals,  and  expressive  of  a  profound  and  thoughtful  sorrow, 
modified  by  seasons  and  by  time.  The  volume  must  be 
a  sealed  book  to  all  who  allow  themselves  to  think  of  poe¬ 
try  as  words  to  be  lightly  or  indolently  read,  or  as  a  mere 
effusion  of  effeminate  sentimentalism :  it  demands  not 
only  study,  but  reflection  on  the  reader’s  own  inmost 
being.  To  such,  and  to  repeated  reading,  the  wisdom  ana 
beauty  of  the  work  disclose  themselves;  and  in  this  lies 
one  of  the  proofs  of  genius  in  it,  for  the  poet  is  treating 
none  of  the  merely  superficial  sentiments,  but  the  more 
profound  emotions  and  the  most  mysterious  meditations, 
with  which  the  soul  of  man  strives  to  preserve  communion 
with  those  who  have  passed  behind  the  veil  that  hides  the 
dead  from  the  living.  It  is  an  effort  made  in  no  vain 
curiosity;  there  is  no  irrational  and  immoral  dallying  with 
grief,  no  wandering  away  from  the  light  of  divine  truth, 
in  chase  of  the  false  fires  of  human  speculations.  The 
poet  clings  to  the  memory  of  his  dead  friend,  with  a  high- 
souled  loyalty,  holding  it  as  an  ever-present  possession  of 
good : 

“  This  truth  came  borne  with  bier  and  pall, 

I  felt  it  when  I  sorrowed  most, 

’Tis  better  to  have  loved  and  Iost^t 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all.” 

It  is  grief  cherished,  not  for  grief’s  sake — that  were  un¬ 
manly,  irrational,  weak,  and  wicked — but  for  its  highest 
moral  uses,  a  spiritual  companionship  that  lifts  him  who 
is  true  to  it  above  all  ignoble  thoughts  and  passions,  and 
makes  him  truer  to  himself  and  to  his  God,  by  deepening 
and  expanding  his  sense  of  immortal  life.  Here  is  a  mi- 


ELEGIAC  POETRY. 


32o 


nistry  of  good  foi  every  human  being  who  knows  a  single 
grave  that  holds  the  earthly  part  of  one  that  ever  was 
dear  to  his  eyes;  and  thus  the  poet  expounds  the  chastening 
power  of  sorrow : 

“  How  pure  at  heart,  and  sound  in  head. 

With  what  divine  affections  bold, 

Should  be  the  man  whose  thought  would  hold 
An  hour's  communion  with  tho  dead ! 

In  vain  shalt  thou,  or  any,  call 
The  spirits  from  their  golden  day, 

,  Except,  like  them,  thou  too  canst  say. 

My  spirit  is  at  peace  with  all. 

They  haunt  the  silence  of  the  breast. 

Imaginations  calm  and  fair, 

The  memory,  like  a  cloudless  air, 

The  conscience  as  a  sea  at  rest. 

But  when  the  heart  is  full  of  din, 

And  doubt  beside  the  portal  waits. 

They  can  but  listen  at  the  gates. 

And  hear  the  household  jar  within.” 

It  was  said  by  Jeremy  Taylor  of  one  of  the  early 
fathers,  that  there  were  some  passages  in  his  writings 
which  a  lamb  might  ford,  and  others  which  an  elephant 
could  not  swim.  In  this  volume  of  poems  there  are 
pieces  which  are  the  lucid  expression  of  thought  or  feel¬ 
ing,  commonuto  many  a  mind,  but  uncommon  in  the 
exquisite  utterance :  there  are  other  passages  dim  and 
even  dark,  for  they  tell  of  a  great  poetic  imagination  look¬ 
ing  into  very  deep  places.  Nowhere  is  this  more  so,  than 
in  that  series  of  stanzas  in  which  he  describes  the  home¬ 
ward  voyage  of  the  ship  from  the  Danube  to  the  Severn 
freighted  with  his  friend’s  lifeless  remains. 

How  wonderfully  expressive  are  they  of  that  complex 

V  28 


LECTURE  TENTH. 


320 

and  confused  state  of  thought  and  feeling  toward  the  dead 
while  they  are  yet  within  the  reach  of  a  tender  care  and 
of  a  sacred  duty !  The  first  of  this  series  speaks  of  the  dead 
as  of  the  sleeping,  and  tenderly  solicits  the  quiet  guardian¬ 
ship  of  the  ship,  and  the  ocean,  sky,  and  elements : 

“Fair  ship,  that  from  the  Italian  shore 
Sailest  the  placid  ocean-plains 
With  my  lost  Arthur’s  loved  remains, 

Spread  thy  full  wings,  and  waft  him  o’er. 

Sphere  all  your  lights  around,  above  ; 

Sleep,  gentle  heavens,  before  the  prow; 

Sleep,  gentle  winds,  as  he  sleeps  now, 

My  friend,  the  brother  of  my  love.” 


The  voyage  brings  to  the  poet’s  earnest  imagination  the 
dread  of  dismal  burial  in  the  sea,  what  he  elsewhere  speaks 
of  in  allusion  to  the  sailor’s  funeral  in  that  remarkable 
line, 

“  His  heavy-shotted  hammock  slirond 
Drops  in  his  vast  and  wander ing  grave.” 

The  “vast  and  wandering  grave”  seems  more  fearful  than 
the  “narrow  house”  that  moves  only  with  the  earth’s  mo¬ 
tion,  and  is  quiet  in  the  churchyard  or  in  the  chancel  * 

“I  hear  the  noise  about  thy  keel; 

I  hear  the  bell  struck  in  the  night; 

I  see  the  cabin-window  bright; 

I  see  the  sailor  at  the  wheel. 

Thou  bringest  the  sailor  to  his  wife, 

And  travelled  men  from  foreign  lands; 

And  letters  unto  trembling  hands ; 

And  thy  dark  freight,  a  vanished  life. 


*  And  he  who  tnus  wrote,  “the  friend,  the  brother  of  my  love,” 
found  his  “vast  and  wandering  grave”  in  the  Atlantic.  W.  B.  R. 


ELEGIAC  POETRY. 


asr 


So  bring  him  :  we  have  idle  dreams ; 

This  look  of  quiet  flatters  thus 
Our  home-bred  fancies :  oh,  to  us, 

The  fools  of  habit,  sweeter  seems 

To  rest  beneath  the  clover  sod, 

That  takes  the  sunshine  and  the  rains, 

Or  where  the  kneeling  hamlet  drains 
The  chalice  of  the  grapes  of  God; 

Than  if  with  thee  the  roaring  wells 
Should  gulf  him  fathom  deep  in  brine  ; 

And  hands  so  often  clasped  in  mine, 

Should  toss  with  tangle  and  with  shells.” 

When  the  ship  has  given  up  her  trust,  the  poet’s  last 
thought  of  her  follows  her  with  thankfulness  and  benedic-' 
tion  : 

“  Henceforth,  wherever  thou  mayst  roam, 

My  blessing,  lik^  a  line  of  light, 

Is  on  the  waters  day  and  night, 

And  like  a  beacon,  guards  thee  home. 

So  may  whatever  tempest  mars 
Mid  ocean,  spare  thee,  sacred  bark ; 

And  balmy  drops  in  summer  dark 
Slide  from  the  bosom  of  the  stars; 

So  kind  an  office  hath  been  done, 

Such  precious  relies  brought  by  thee ; 

The  dust  of  him  I  shall  not  see 
Till  all  my  widowed  race  be  nin.” 

After  the  unconscious  and  sacred  freight  is  placed  upon 
the  land  again — the  devouring  ocean  having  done  gentle 
service  of  restoration — the  poet’s  heart  is  almost  exultaDt : 

“  ’Tis  well,  ’tis  something,  we  may  stand 
Where  he  in  English  earth  is  laid, 

And  from  his  ashes  may  be  made 
Tho  violet  of  his  native  land. 


LECTURE  TENTH. 


S28 


’Tis  little ;  but  it  looks  in  truth 
As  if  the  quiet  bones  were  blest 
Among  familiar  names  to  rest, 

And  in  the  places  of  his  youth. 

Come  then,  pure  hands,  and  bear  the  head 
That  sleeps,  or  wears  the  mask  of  sleep, 

And  come,  whatever  loves  to  weep, 

And  hear  the  ritual  of  the  dead.” 

In  this  instance,  the  first  period  of  grief  was,  by  the  pecu¬ 
liar  circumstances,  protracted  much  beyond  the  common 
duration;  and  thus  there  was  delayed  for  a  while  that 
second  period — which  lasts  through  the  mourner’s  life — 
when  the  separation  is  consummated  by  the  grave.  The 
sharp  agony  or  the  dull  anguish  which  follows,  is  coupled 
perhaps,  first,  with  the  memories  that  are  prompted  by 
local  association,  the  familiar  places  that  are  darkened  by 
the  shadow.  These  feelings  have  their  record  in  the 
volume,  but  perhaps  even  more  expressively  in  some 
stanzas  not  contained  in  it,  and  different  in  metre,  but 
obviously  belonging  to  the  same  subject,  written  perhaps 
on  the  heights  of  the  Bristol  Channel : 

“  Break,  break,  break 

On  thy  cold  gray  stones,  0  sea ! 

And  I  would  that  my  tongue  could  utter 
The  thoughts  that  arise  in  me. 

Oh  well  for  the  fisherman’s  boy, 

That  he  shouts  with  his  sister  at  play! 

Oh  well  for  the  sailor  lad, 

That  he  sings  in  his  boat  on  the  bay ! 

And  tfie  stately  ships  go  on 
To  their  haven  under  the  hill; 

But  oh  for  the  touch  of  a  vanish’d  hand, 

And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still ! 


ELEGIAC  POETRY. 


3  » 


Break,  break,  break 

At  the  foot  of  tby  crags,  0  sea ! 

But  the  tender  grace  of  a  day  that  is  dead 
Will  never  come  back  to  me.” 

If  local  association  can  thus  quicken  the  pangs  of  sorrow 
there  is  also  a  ministry  of  nature  soothing  them,  a  salu 
tary  influence  working  either  in  sympathy  or  in  consola¬ 
tion,  so  that  the  heart  takes  strength  from  either  the 
tumult  or  the  tranquillity  of  earth  and  sky.  These  are 
processes  of  which  it  belongs  especially  to  the  poet,  as 
moralist  and  philosopher,  to  give  the  exposition.  This 
poem  shows  the  mind  in  its  various  moods  in  unison  with 
the  various  moods  of  nature,  calm  and  stormy;  but 
throughout  all  such  changes,  the  deep,  unalterable  sorrow 
is  asserted  when  it  is  asked — 

“What  words  are  these  have  fallen  from  me? 

Can  calm  despair  and  wild  unrest 
Be  tenants  of  a  single  breast, 

Or  sorrow  such  a  changeling  be? 

Or  doth  she  only  seem  to  take 

The  touch  of  change  in  calm  or  storm  ; 

But  knows  no  more  of  transient  form 

In  her  deep  self,  than  some  dead  lake 

That  holds  the  shadow  of  a  lark 
Hung  in  the  shadow  of  a  heaven?” 

*  *  -*  « 

This  action  and  reaction  between  nature  and  the  heart,  as 
influenced  through  the  imagination,  is  shown  (to  take  aD 
illustration  from  another  poet)  in  those  stanzas  of  Words¬ 
worth,  composed  during  an  evening  walk  after  a  stormy 
day,  when  the  public  mind  was  agitated  by  the  news  of 
the  approaching  death  of  a  favourite  statesman  : 

28* 


230 


LECTUKE  TENTH. 


“Loud  is  the  vale !  the  voice  is  up 
With  which  she  speaks  when  storms  are  gone, 

A  mighty  unison  of  streams, 

Of  all  her  voices,  one ! 

Loud  is  the  vale ;  this  inland  depth 
In  peace  is  roaring  like  the  sea; 

Yon  star  upon  the  mountain-top 
Is  listening  quietly. 

Sad  was  I,  even  to  pain  deprest, 

Importunate  and  heavy  load! 

The  comforter  hath  found  me  here, 

Upon  this  lonely  road.” 

Thus  did  the  tranquillity  of  the  star  shining  in  the 
peaceful  heavens  sink  down  into  the  human  heart. 

To  return  to  Mr.  Tennyson’s  volume,  let  me  advert  to 
its  truthfulness  in  another  respect.  There  is  a  trial  to 
which  Christian  sorrow  is  subjected  from  which,  I  believe, 
the  heathen  heart  in  ancient  times  must  have  been  in 
some  measure  free.  The  pagan  faith  could  at  best  teach 
only  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  but  it  made  no  attrac¬ 
tions  for  the  place  of  repose  of  the  lifeless  body ;  and  all 
the  skill  and  pains  bestowed  by  Egyptian  art,  or  in  the 
Roman  sarcophagus,  seem  to  be  no  more  than  a  blind 
obedience  to  some  natural  instincts.  But  one  great  truth 
of  the  Christian  creed,  lifting  the  mind  above  mere 
instincts  to  an  assured  ground  of  belief,  teaches  that  the 
body  too  shall  have  its  portion  in  the  hereafter.  Pagan 
belief,  simpler  in  its  error,  could  follow,  obscurely  indeed, 
the  disembodied  spirit ;  while  the  Christian  mind,  happier 
in  its  truth,  is  often  perplexed  between  thoughts  that 
travel  to  the  body’s  home,  and  thoughts  that  would  fain 
soar  to  the  spirit? s  home. 

It  would,  I  believe,  be  asserting  not  too  much  to  say, 


ELEGIAC  POETRY. 


3"I 

that  the  mind  of  the  author  of  “  In  Memoriam”  must 
have  passed  through  a  perturbed  spiritual  condition, 
passed  through  it  thoughtfully  and  triumphantly,  to  give 
to  other  minds  guidance  through  the  same  perplexity. 
One  of  the  most  pitiable  conditions  to  which  that  per¬ 
plexity  sometimes  leads,  is  the  moibid  and  materialized 
state  of  mind  which  clings  in  all  its  thoughts  to  the  visible 
burial-place.  You  remember  that  deplorable  example  of 
the  Spanish  princess,  the  daughter  of  Ferdinand  and  Isa¬ 
bella,  the  mother  of  Charles  the  Fifth,  the  half-crazed 
Joanna,  and  the  frenzied  infatuation  with  which  she  clung 
for  years  to  the  mouldering  remains  of  her  husband. 
It  is  as  one  of  the  morbid  moods  of  a  perturbed  soul  that 
Shakspeare  represents  Hamlet  questioning  the  grave¬ 
digger’s  technical  knowledge,  and  handling  the  skull  of 
Yorick.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  a  genuine  and  wise 
and  dutiful  feeling  which  was  expressed  by  Lady  Ilussel, 
the  widow  of  him  who  had  died  cruelly  on  the  scaffold. 
“  When,”  said  she,  “  1  have  done  (my)  duty  to  my  best 
friend,  and  (to  my  children,)  how  gladly  would  I  lie 
down  by  that  beloved  dust  I  lately  went  to  visit,  (that  is, 
the  case  that  holds  it.)  It  is  a  satisfaction  to  me  ypu  did 
not  disapprove  of  what  I  did,  as  some  do,  that  it  seems 
have  heard  of  it,  though  I  never  mentioned  it  to  any 
beside  yourself.  I  had  considered  I  went  not  to  seek 
the  living  among  the  dead  ;  I  knew  I  should  not  see  him 
any  more  wherever  I  went,  and  had  made  a  covenant  with 
myself  not  to  break  out  in  unreasonable,  fruitless  passion, 
but  quicken  my  contemplation  whither  the  nobler  part 
was  fled,  to  a  country  afar  off,  where  no  earthly  power 
boars  any  sway,  nor  can  put  an  end  to  a  happy  society  ” 
One  expression  of  this  noble-minded  lady  shows  an 


LECTURE  TENTH. 


832 

assumption  very  common  in  deciding  that  it  is  to  “a 
country  afar  off”  that  the  spirit  has  departed.  As  a 
mode  of  expressing  the  sense  of  separation  it  is  natural, 
but  in  other  respects  it  is  without  authority,  and  too  often 
tends  to  a  thought  of  utter  annihilation  in  death.  One 
of  the  great  English  divines  says,  u  Little  know  we,  how 
little  away  a  soul  hath  to  go  to  heaven,  when  it  departs  from 
the  body ;  whether  it  must  pass  locally  through  moon,  sun, 
and  firmament,  (and,  if  all  that  must  be  done,  it  may  be  done 
in  less  time  than  I  have  proposed  the  doubt  in,)  or  whether 
that  soul  find  new  light  in  the  same  room,  and  be  not 
carried  into  any  other,  but  that  the  glory  of  heaven  be 
diffused  over  all,  I  know  not,  I  dispute  not,  I  inquire 
not.”*  It  is  a  belief  which  imaginative  wisdom  asserts 
in  poetry,  that  after  the  material  presence  has  passed 
away  from  sight  and  hearing,  there  may  be  a  spiritual 
presence  nearer,  closer,  and  more  real.  The  popular  and 
vulgar  belief  in  the  gross  fictions  of  ghosts  and  phantoms 
is  perhaps  an  attestation  of  truth  distorted. f  Southey,  in 
one  of  his  prose  works,  said  that  the  most  entire  constancy 
to  the  memory  of  the  dead  can  be  found  only  where  there 
is  the  union  of  a  strong  imagination  and  a  strong  heart, 
and  in  his  ode  to  the  memory  of  Bishop  Heber — 

“  Ilebcr,  thou  art  not  dead,  thou  canst  not  die  ! 

Nor  can  I  think  of  thee  as  lost. 


*■  Donne’s  Sermons,  vol.  ii.  p.  400. 

f  It  is  a  pity,  it  seems  to  me,  that  the  word  “ghost”  has  become  so 
perverted  and  debased  from  its  high  and  pure  spiritual  meaning,  for 
m  common  speech  it  signifies  the  fantastic  notion  of  an  immaterialism 
something  sensualized,  for  if  impalpable  yet  visible,  too  refined  for 
one  sense,  but  gross  enough  for  another,  and  therefore  belonging  to 
sense,  and  not  to  spirit.  Thus  it  is  that  truth  first  is  materialized  and 
.reused,  and  then  wholly  denied.  II.  R. 


ELEGIAC  POETRY. 


333 


A  little  portion  of  this  little  isle 
At  first  divided  us  ;  then  half  the  globe  : 

The  same  earth  held  us  still ;  but  when, 

0  Reginald,  wert  thou  so  near  as  now ; 

’Tis  but  the  falling  of  a  withered  leaf, 

The  breaking  of  a  shell, 

The  rending  of  a  veil !” 

Aud  Wordsworth,  in  one  of  his  elegies,  boldly  pro 
claims : 

“  Thou  takest  not  away,  0  Death ! 

Thou  strikest,  absence  perisheth, 

Indifference  is  no  more  ; 

The  future  brightens  on  our  sight; 

For  on  the  past  hath  fallen  a  light, 

That  tempts  us  to  adore.” 

I  have  apparently  stepped  aside  from  my  subject  in 
citing  these  authorities,  but  the  truth  they  sanction  is  set 
forth  in  this  poem  in  the  manifold  forms  into  which  the 
poet’s  genius  has  fashioned  it,  showing  how  that  spiritual 
presence  has  been  a  reality  to  him,  helping  him  onward 
in  the  destiny  of  life.  The  manly  loyalty  of  his  sorrow 
never  fails  him,  but,  conscious  of  the  wisdom  which  sor¬ 
row  brings,  he  clings  to  it  with  gratitude. 

The  deep  mystery  that  wraps  the  whole  subject  of  {he 
relation  between  the  living  aud  the  dead  is  in  most  minds 
barren  of  all  belief;  and,  often  worse  than  mere  negative 
unbelief,  it  boldly  denies  that  which  lies  much  farther 
beyond  the  reach  of  denial  than  of  assertion  :  that  any 
influence  of  the  spirits  of  the  departed  upon  the  spirits  of 
the  living  is  possible,  and  so  covenant  with  the  dead  is 
boldly  brokeu.  One  of  the  most  learned  and  logical  theo¬ 
logians  among  English  laymen,  in  the  present  century, 
the  late  Alexander  Knox,  said  that  there  was  no  opinion 
on  which  his  mind  rested  with  stronger  assurance  than 


LECTURE  TEXT  II. 


r.'t 

that  the  spirits  of  the  departed  have  a  larger  knowledge 
of  transactions  on  earth  than  they  had  in  life ;  and  that 
having  lost  his  father  at  twelve  years  of  age,  he  felt,  after 
the  lapse  of  half  a  century,  that  all  his  days  had  been 
overshadowed  by  paternal  solicitude.  These  opinions 
occur  in  an  argument  to  prove  the  concern  felt  by  departed 
spirits  for  those  left  behind,  and  I  refer  to  it  because  it 
shows  one  of  the  prime  truths  of  this  poem  reached  by 
another  path,  the  process  of  strict  argumentation.* 

The  study  of  “  In  Memoriam”  will  also  show  how  it  vin¬ 
dicates  other  truths  affecting  the  life  and  destiny  of  man — 
elemental  truths  which  have  been  assailed  by  some  of  the 
philosophical  heresies  of  the  day^  and,  indeed,  there  is  to 
my  mind  something  sublime  in  the  poet’s  strong  affection 
to  his  friend,  passed  from  mortal  sight,  having  power  to 
sweep  these  heresies  away.  The  notion,  coupled  perhaps 
with  pantheism,  which  would  deny  individuality  of  exist¬ 
ence  in  the  hereafter,  is  dissipated  by  the  assurance  which 
affection  gives — the  feeling  that  it 

“Is  faith  as  vague  as  all  unsweet: 

Eternal  form  shall  still  divide 
The  eternal  soul  from  all  beside, 

And  I  shall  know  him  when  we  meet.” 

Sombre  as  the  poem  at  first  appears,  it  works  its  way  on 
to  happy  hopes — the  confidence  of  future  recognitions,  and 
a  cheerful  faith. 

The  poet’s  voice  is  heard,  too,  against  another  error  of 
the  times — that  which  would  give  intellect  supremacy  over 
the  higher  powers  which  are  in  the  soul,  confounding 
knowledge  with  wisdom,  or  even  making  wisdom  the  sud- 


*  Alexander  Knox’s  Remains,  vol.  ii. 


ELEGIAC  POETRY. 


335 


ordinate.  The  better  truth  comes  from  the  memory  and 
imaginative  contemplation  of  the  character  of  his  friend, 
when,  speaking  of  knowledge  falsely  elevated,  he  says — 

“Half  grown  as  yet,  a  child  and  vain, — 

She  cannot  fight  the  fear  of  death  : 

What  is  she,  cut  from  love  and  faith,  -- — 

But  some  wild  Pallas  from  the  brain 

Of  demons  ?  fiery-hot  to  burst 
All  barriers  in  her  onward  race 
For  power.  Let  her  know  her  place ; 

She  is  the  second,  not  the  first. 

A  higher  hand  must  make  her  mild, 

If  all  be  not  in  vain  ;  and  guide 
Her  footsteps,  moving  side  by  side 

With  wisdom,  like  the  younger  child: 

For  she  is  earthly  of  the  mind, 

But  wisdom  heavenly  of  the  soul. 

0  friend,  who  earnest  to  thy  goal 

So  early,  leaving  me  behind, 

I  would  the  great  world  grew  like  thee, 

Who  grewest  not  alone  in  power 
And  knowledge,  but  from  hour  to  hour 

In  reverence  and  in  charity.” 

The  effect  of  a  sorrow  not  weakly  indulged,  but  at  once 
faithfully  cherished  and  wisely  disciplined,  is  perhaps 
most  comprehensively  shown  in  those  stanzas  which 
affirm  the  need,  for  the  highest  purposes  of  sorrow,  of 
health  and  strength,  in  all  that  makes  up  our  moral  being. 

Iu  concluding  this  lecture,  let  me  say  that  I  have  made 
no  attempt  to  make  choice  among  the  poems  with  a  view 
to  present  effect,  but  rather,  in  this  desultory  way,  to  illus¬ 
trate  the  general  purpose  and  character  of  the  work,  and 
6ome  of  the  principles  involved  in  it.  I  have  thus  passed 


330 


LECTURE  TENTH. 


in  silence  by  many  of  the  most  admirable  pieces  in  the 
volume,  and  have  not  stopped  to  speak  of  the  superior  me¬ 
trical  art  which  pervades  the  verse.  Indeed,  I  am  wJl 
aware,  that  in  many  respects  this  is  rude  handling  of  a 
poem  which  peculiarly  demands  the  meditative  study  of 
silent  reading.  It  is  then  that  you  may  hear  and  see  this 
stream  of  song  and  of  sorrow — at  first  flowing  deeply  but 
darkly,  contending  alike  against  its  own  force  and  against 
resistance,  light  from  the  sky  breaking  only  fitfully  through 
the  gloom  :  you  may  follow  it  after  a  while,  gathering  its 
strength  into  a  more  placid  channel,  and  you  will  behold 
it  at  the  last  flowing  as  deeply  as  at  first,  but  calmly,  and 
in  the  light  of  peaceful  memories  and  tranquil  hopes,  and 
bearing  in  the  bosom  of  its  own  deep  tranquillity  the  re¬ 
flection  of  the  deep  tranquillity  of  the  heavens. 


LECTURE  XI. 


JTilerafim  of  Mit  anb  Rumour.* 

Subtilty  of  these  emotions — Sydney  Smith  and  Leigh  Hunt — Dullness  of 
jest-books — lludibras  a  tedious  book — Sydney  Smith’s  idea  of  the 
study  of  wit — Charles  Lamb — Incapacity  for  a  jest — German  note  or. 
Knickerbocker — Stoicism  and  Puritanism — Guesses  atTruth— Cheer¬ 
ful  literature  needed  for  thoughtful  minds — Recreative  power  of 
books — Different  modes  of  mental  relaxation — Napoleon — Shelley — 
Cowper — Southey’s  merriness — Doctor  Arnold — Shakspeare  and 
Scott’s  humour — The  Antiquary — Burke — Barrow’s  definition  of  wit 
— Hobbes — Forms  of  Humour — Doctor  Johnson’s  grotesque  defi¬ 
nitions — Collins,  the  landscape  painter — Examples  of  grotesque  style 
— Irish  Bulls — Rip  Van  Winkle — Sydney  Smith  and  Doctor  Parr — 
Humour  in  old  tragedies — Lear  and  the  fool — Hamlet  and  the  grave¬ 
digger — Irony — Macbeth  and  the  doctor — Anne  Boleyn — Bishop 
Latimer — Fuller — Dean  Swift  and  Arbuthnot — Gulliver — Sir  Roger 
De  Coverley — Charles  Lamb — Swift  and  Byron’s  humour — Prosti¬ 
tution  of  wit — Sir  Robert  Walpole — Lord  Melbourne — Hogarth — 
Danger  of  power  of  humour  illustrated — Ruskin’s  criticism. 


In  my  last  lecture  I  was  engaged  in  the  consideration 
<  (  some  very  serious  subjects,  the  gravest  that  belong  to 
literature.  In  passing  from  them  at  once  to  the  Litera¬ 
ture  of  Wit  and  Humour,  I  have  less  apprehensiou  of  the 
transition  being  felt  as  a  violent  one  than  that  there  will 
be  found  in  this  lecture  more  of  seriousness  than  the  chief 
title  of  it  might  lead  one  to  expect.  The  movements  of 
the  mind  which  are  connected  with  the  faculties  styled 
“Wit”  and  “Humour,”  are  among  the  most  subtile  of 


*  University  of  Pennsylvania,  March  13,  1851. 

29  337 


LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 


338 

which  the  mind  is  capable,  are,  for  the  most  part,  difficult 
of  description,  and  demand  an  acute  and  delicate  ana¬ 
lysis.  In  contrast  with  my  last  lecture,  I  am  anxious  at 
the  outset  to  give  you  the  assurance  of  a  promise  that  I 
shall  this  evening  make  a  more  reasonable  demand  upon 
your  time  and  thoughts,  for  the  light  artillery  which  I 
have  now  to  do  with  can  be  more  expeditiously  manoeuvred 
than  the  heavy  ordnance  to  which  I  had  to  stand  on 
the  former  occasion. 

It  is  well  that  it  should  be  understood  between  us  that 
the  subject  of  Wit  and  Humour  does  not  at  all  imply  that 
the  treatment  of  it  should  be  identical  with  the  effects  of 
those  powers;  on  the  contrary,  by  raising  such  expectation 
and  not  fulfilling  it,  the  subject  may,  in  reality,  prove 
more  serious  than  even  a  grave  subject,  wherewith  such 
anticipations  could  not  be  associated.  Though  I  am 
usually  averse  to  adverting  in  any  way  to  the  difficulty  of 
any  subject  on  which  I  have  undertaken  to  lecture,  indulge 
me  iu  saying  that  the  subject  of  the  literature  of  Wit  aud 
TI  urnour  is  one  for  which  there  is  peculiarly  demanded, 
not  only  a  genial  and  cultivated  capacity  to  enjoy  such 
literature,  but  a  skill  aud  tact  in  the  handling  of  it;  the 
importance  of  which  I  am  so  well  aware  of,  that  it  is  with 
no  small  misgiving  that  I  have  ventured  upon  the  subject. 
When  the  late  Sydney  Smith,  the  most  distinguished  wit 
of  contemporary  literature,  in  a  course  of  lectures  on 
Moral  Philosophy,  discussed  these  faculties  of  Wit  and 
Humour,  the  subject,  though  manifestly  not  an  unconge¬ 
nial  one  to  him,  becomes  even  in  his  hands,  a  somewhat  se¬ 
date  disquisition.  When  Leigh  Hunt  wrote  his  volume  on 
“  The  Poetry  of  Wit  and  Humour,”  vivacious  and  plea¬ 
sant  and  facetious  as  he  has  often  shown  himself  in  other 


LITERATURE  OF  WI1  AND  HUMOUR. 


339 


productions,  in  this  we  find  less  of  that  sprightliness 
which  once  made  sunshine  for  him  within  prison  walls. 

But  when  one  comes  to  reflect  upon  it,  it  is  not  sur¬ 
prising  that  a  subject  of  this  kind  should  assume  what 
appears  to  be  an  unwonted  and  inapposite  seriousness, 
when  it  is  taken  out  of  its  life  of  activity,  and  made  a  mat¬ 
ter  of  speculation.  Everybody  knows  what  a  dull  process 
it  is  to  explain  a  piece  of  wit. 

“A  jest’s  prosperity  lies  in  the  ear 
Of  him  that  hears  it,  never  in  the  tongue 
Of  him  that  makes  it;”* 

and  much  graver  than  explanation  is  the  work  of  analysis. 
It  is  a  cruel  business  to  anatomize  the  creatures  of  wit  or 
humour,  to  place  them  on  the  metaphysical  dissecting- 
table,  and  there  to  lay  bare  the  hidden  places  of  their 
power  •,  and  it  demands,  too,  for  this  serious  service  the 
most  acute  intellectual  scalpel  which  the  metaphysician 
can  handle. 

This  also  is  to  be  considered,  that  not  only  does  a  jest’s 
prosperity  lie  in  the  ear  of  him  that  hears  it,  but  it  has 
its  life  in  an  atmosphere  of  its  own ;  it  springs  up  from  a 
soil  of  its  own ;  and  there  are  few  plants  so  tender  in  the 
transplanting.  A  happy,  well-timed,  well-applied  piece 
of  wit,  which  would  electrify  a  House  of  Commons,  becomes 
tame  and  vapid  when  removed  by  repetition  out  of  its 
own  sustaining  atmosphere  :  one  proof  of  this  may  be 
observed  in  the  fact  that  there  are  few  duller  books  than 
what  are  called  “jest-books,”  whether  the  collection  be 
made  by  Hieroclos  or  by  Joe  Miller,  (who  is,  I  believe, 
not  an  apocryphal  person,)  or  by  the  capacious  intellect 


*  Love’s  Labour’s  Lost. 


810 


LECTURE  E  L  E  V  E  N  T  II. 


of  Lord  Bacon.  They  are  not  only  very  lifeless  reading, 
but  are  regarded  with  a  degree  of  contempt,  which  almost 
denies  them  admission  into  a  nation’s  literature,  even  with' 
the  authority  of  the  name  of  the  philosophic  Lord  Chan¬ 
cellor  pleading  for  entrance.*  The  same  cause  makes  it, 
to  a  certain  degree,  a  difficult  and  delicate  task  to  present 
illustrations  of  this  subject,  for  even  without  subjecting 
them  to  the  torture  of  analysis,  they  must,  although  syn¬ 
thetically  considered,  be  detached  from  their  context, 
separated  from  all  that  was  preparatory  of  their  reception, 
and  upon  which  their  welcome  is  so  dependent.  The 
magic  of  wit  and  humour  will  be  found  very  often  to  be 
so  intimately  connected  with  other  intellectual  action  and 
other  states  of  feeling,  that  all  effect  is  destroyed  by  the 
attempt  to  separate  it ;  a  dull,  heavy  residuum  is  left,  and 
all  the  delicate,  volatile  spirit  is  evaporated  away.  It  will 
be  one  of  my  purposes  in  this  lecture,  to  show  the  har¬ 
monious  connection  of  the  faculties  of  wit  and  humour 
with  states  of  mind  and  of  feeling  with  which  we  do  not 
ordinarily  associate  them. 

Assuming,  as  we  are  entitled  to  do,  that  that  alone  is 
genuine  literature  which  contributes  in  some  way  to 
fashion  the  reader’s  character,  to  give  both  strength  and 
guidance  to  his  thoughts  and  feelings,  books  which  abound 


*  There  are,  I  believe,  few  more  tedious  books  in  the  language  than 
Butler’s  Hudibras ;  the  perpetual  and  sustained  effort  at  wit  becomes 
oppressive,  and  it  can  be  read  only,  I  am  disposed  to  think,  in  small 
quantities  Ithasbeen  notunfrequently  said,  in  Shakspearian  criticism, 
that  the  gayest  and  one  of  the  bitterest  characters,  Mercutio,  is  put 
out  of  the  way  in  the  third  act,  not  because  the  poet's  fund  of  inven¬ 
tive  wit  was  exhausted,  (that  could  not  be  with  him  who  carried  Fal- 
staff  through  three  dramas,)  but  the  continuance  of  Mercutio’s  vivacity 
would  have  been  inapposite.  H.  It. 


LITERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  HUMOUR. 


34] 


with  wit  or  humour  are  entitled  to  take  a  place  in  a 
nation’s  literature,  only  so  far  as  they  subserve  the  same 
ends.  As  in  one  of  my  lectures  I  spoke  of  the  error  of 
attempting  to  draw  too  precise  a  boundary  line  around 
sacred  literature,  making  it  too  much  a  thing  standing 
apart,  so,  in  regard  to  the  literature  of  wit  and  humour. 
I  shall  be  sorry  if  such  a  title,  which  I  have  been  obliged 
to  use,  led  any  one  to  think  of  it  as  of  a  more  distinctive 
existence  than  is  the  case,  instead  of  regarding  those  facul¬ 
ties  as  pervading  the  literature  in  various  degrees,  and 
thus  forming  some  of  the  elements  of  its  life.  I  shall 
have  occasion  to  trace  these  elements  in  close  contact  with 
elements  of  tragedy,  and  to  show  how  the  processes  which 
we  generalize  under  the  names  of  wit  and  humour  are  kin¬ 
dred  with  the  most  intense  passion  and  with  the  deepest 
feeling.  Our  English  literature  shows,  I  think  most  con¬ 
clusively,  in  ways  that  are  respectively  example  and  warn¬ 
ing,  that  these  faculties  are  strongest  and  healthiest  when 
they  exist  and  are  cultivated  in  just  proportion  with  other 
faculties  and  feelings,  without  gaining  a  predominance  or 
pre-eminence,  which  makes  them  perilous  to  him  in  whom 
they  thus  get  the  mastery,  and  formidable  to  others.  The 
best  books  in  the  language  prove  the  power  and  the  beauty 
of  this  harmony  and  proportion  of  the  faculties ;  the  lite¬ 
rature  should  serve  as  an  agency  of  discipline  to  produce 
in  readers  a  like  well-balanced,  well-proportioned  condition 
of  the  mind,  and  in  the  literature  of  wit  and  humour  we 
are  to  find  help  for  the  cultivation  of  those  powers. 

Sydney  Smith  said,  “It  is  imagined  that  wit  is  a  sort 
of  inexplicable  visitation,  that  it  comes  and  goes  with  the 
rapidity  of  lightning,  and  that  it  is  quite  as  unattainable 
as  beauty  or  just  proportion.  I  am  so  much  of  a  contrary 
W  29* 


LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 


o42 

way  of  thinking,  that  I  am  convinced  a  man  might  sit 
down  as  systematically  and  as  successfully  to  the  study  of 
wit  as  he  might  to  the  study  of  mathematics ;  and  I 
would  answer  for  it,  that,  by  giving  up  only  six  hours  a 
day  to  being  witty,  he  should  come  on  prodigiously  before 
Midsummer,  so  that  his  friends  should  hardly  know  him 
again.  For  what  is  there  to  hinder  the  mind  from  gra¬ 
dually  acquiring  a  habit  of  attending  to  the  lighter  rela¬ 
tions  of  ideas  in  which  wit  consists?”*  Now  this  is 
obviously  the  exaggeration  of  one  who,  in  the  triumphant 
consciousness  of  his  own  endowment,  pictures  the  per¬ 
plexity  of  a  student  of  wit  coming  to  his  task  as  he  would 
to  the  differential  calculus,  giving  only  six  hours  a  day  to 
it,  and  astonishing  his  friends  by  Midsummer  with  his 
progress.  But  if  this  is  witty  exaggeration,  so  far  as 
creative  power  is  concerned,  it  covers  a  truth  with  respect 
to  the  culture  of  a  susceptibility  to  the  productions  of 
wit  and  humour;  and  that  susceptibility  may  fairly  be 
considered  as  a  constituent  of  every  vigorous  and  well-cul¬ 
tivated  mind — undoubtedly  so,  when  the  full  extent  of  the 
operations  of  wit  and  humour  is  justly  appreciated. 

In  such  culture,  whether  by  literature  or  otherwise, 
there  will  of  course  be  found  the  same  disparity  of  natural 
endowment  of  those  as  of  other  faculties.  As  there  are 
unimaginative  intellects  to  which  all  poetry  is  a  sealed 
mystery,  so  are  there  others  which  are  impenetrable  to  all 
the  influences  of  wit  and  humour,  and  this  is  owing  not 
so  much  to  any  exclusive  predominance  of  seriousness  as 
to  that  of  dulness.  It  was  in  this  respect  that  Charles 
Lamb,  in  his  Essay  on  “Imperfect  Sympathies,”  com- 


*  Sketches  on  Moral  Philosophy,  Lecture  x.  p.  125,  Am.  edition. 


LITERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  HUMOUR.  34” 

plained  of  his  inability  to  like  a  certain  description  of 
Scotchmen — that  dry,  literal  phase  of  intellect,  which  is  so 
alien  to  all  poetic  or  humorous  liberty  of  language.  “  I 
was  present,”  writes  Lamb,  “  not  long  since,  at  a  party 
of  North  Britons,  where  a  son  of  Burns  was  expected; 
and  happened  to  drop  a  silly  expression  (in  my  South 
British  way)  that  I  wished  it  were  the  father  instead  of 
the  son,  when  four  of  them  started  up  at  once  to  inform 
me  that  ‘  that  was  impossible,  because  he  was  dead.’ 
Au  impracticable  wish,  it  seems,  was  more  than  they 
could  conceive.”  This  character  of  mind  (so  different,  I 
may  remark  from  the  genial  Scotch  humour  of  Burns,  or 
Walter  Scott,  or  John  Wilson)  is  not  peculiar  to  Scot¬ 
land,  but  every  one  can  probably  find  specimens  of  it  in 
the  range  of  his  own  acquaintance. 

The  most  remarkable  instance  of  obtuseness  to  light 
letters  that  I  ever  met  with  occurred  in  another  region. 
Goeller,  a  German  editor  of  Thucydides,  in  annotating  a 
passage  of  the  Greek  historian,  describing  the  violence  of 
the  Athenian  factions,  gives  two  modern  illustrations :  one 
of  the  Guelf  and  Ghibelline  parties  in  Italy;  the  other — he 
cites  Washington  Irving  and  his  book  very  gravely  in 
Latin — the  factions  of  long  pipes  and  short  pipes  in  New 
York,  under  the  administration  of  Peter  Stuyvesant. 
Imagine  this  erudite  and  ponderous  German  poring  over 
Knickerbocker  as  seriously  as  over  Guicciardini’s  History 
of  the  Italian  Republics  !* 


*  This  instance  of  simplicity  has  a  most  grotesque  effect  in  the  ori¬ 
ginal,  printed  at  Leipsic  in  1836.  It  literally  reads  thus:  “Addo  locum 
Washingtonis  Irwingii,  Hist.  Novi  Eboraci.  lib.  vii.  cap.  v.” — “  The  old 
factions  of  Long  Pipes  and  Short  Pipes,  strangled  by  the  Herculean 
grasp  of  P.  Stuyvesant.”  W.  B.  R. 


m 


LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 


BuL  the  genial  mind  is  accessible,  at  least,  to  some  one 
or  other  of  the  manifold  influences  which  are  very  inade¬ 
quately  expressed  by  these  two  general  names,  “  Wit’' 
and  “Humour.”  They  do  but  describe  an  inventive 
energy  of  genius,  which  assumes  a  vast  variety  of  expres¬ 
sion,  ranging  from  the  most  acute  intellectual  wit,  through 
the  many  forms  of  humour,  down  to  frolic  drollery  and 
mere  fun  and  the  broadest  buffoonery.  If  it  be  asked  wbat 
claim  to  culture  this  class  of  faculties  has,  the  first  and 
simplest  answer  is,  that  they  are  among  the  talents  with 
which  man  is  gifted — the  gift  bringing  along  with  it  the 
necessity  and  the  duty  of  culture:  they  are  powers  which 
will  run  riot  and  run  to  mischief,  unless  guided  and  dis¬ 
ciplined.  They  cannot  be  destroyed  by  being  disowned. 
It  was  a  wretched  delusion  when  Stoicism  strove  to  stiffen 
humanity  into  stone  :  and  so,  in  later  days,  there  was  like 
wrong  when  Puritanism  looked  black  upon  natural,  inno¬ 
cent,  healthful  cheerfulness,  frighting  the  joyous  temper 
of  a  people  with  a  frown,  which  I  believe  to  this  day 
haunts  the  race  both  in  Britain  and  in  America,  to  an 
extent  which  is  irrational,  unchristian,  and  of  course  in¬ 
jurious,  by  abandoning  what  is  festive  to  the  world's 
keeping,  instead  of  retaining  them  under  better  and  safer 
influences.  It  was  Wesley,  I  believe,  who  said  he  had 
no  idea  of  allowing  the  devil  to  monopolize  all  the  good 
tunes;  and  it  is  certain  that  that  same  personage  (I 
don’t  mean  Wesley)  will  be  ready  enough  to  furnish  to 
the  needs  of  men  holydays  of  his  contriving,  if  no  other 
provision  be  made  for  what  is  a  natural  and  lawful  craving 
of  toiling  humanity.  There  will  be,  too,  a  literature  of 
wicked  wit  to  fascinate  and  poison  men,  unless  that  of  a 
truthful  and  healthful  kind  be  cultivated.  It  is,  I  believe, 


LITERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  HUMOUR.  346 

not  an  uncommon  inclination,  to  disown  and  to  disparage 
that  literature  which  is  an  agency  of  pleasant  thoughts ;  and 
in  opposing  to  such  an  opinion  a  few  serious  authorities, 
I  hope  you  will  not  apprehend  an  inappropriate  relapse 
into  the  grave  subjects  of  my  last  lecture.  A  great  divine, 
preaching  at  a  time  when  Puritan  rigour  was  beginning 
to  make  itself  felt,  said,  “  Fear  not  thou,  that  a  cheerful¬ 
ness  and  alacrity  in  using  God’s  blessings — fear  not  thou, 
that  a  moderate  delight  in  music,  in  conversation,  in 
recreations,  shall  be  imputed  to  thee  for  a  fault,  for  it  is 
conceived  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  is  the  offspring  of  a 
peaceful  conscience  and  another  who  lived  to  see  and 
to  suffer  by  the  new  severity,  Jeremy  Taylor,  said,  “  It  is 
certain  that  all  that  which  can  innocently  make  a  man 
cheerful,  does  also  make  him  charitable,  for  grief,  and  age, 
and  sickness,  and  weariness,  these  are  peevish  and  trouble¬ 
some  ;  but  mirth  and  cheerfulness  are  content,  and  civil, 
and  compliant,  and  communicative,  and  love  to  do  good, 
and  to  swell  up  to  felicity  only  upon  the  wings  of  charity. 

...  If  a  facete  discourse,  and  an  amicable,  frierdly 
mirth  can  refresh  the  spirit,  and  take  it  off  from  the  vile 
temptation  of  peevish,  despairing,  uncomplying  melan¬ 
choly,  it  must  needs  be  innocent  and  commendable.  And 
we  may  as  well  be  refreshed  by  a  clean  and  brisk  dis¬ 
course,  as  by  the  air  of  Campanian  wines;  and  our  faces 
and  our  heads  may  as  well  be  anointed  and  look  pleasant 
with  wit  and  friendly  intercourse,  as  with  the  fat  of  the 
balsam-tree.”  A  living  divine,  speaking  not  profession¬ 
ally,  but  in  that  agreeable  work,  the  “Guesses  at  Truth,” 
has  said :  What  a  dull,  plodding,  tramping,  clanking  would 


*  Donne’s  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  103. 


S46 


LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 


the  ordinary  intercourse  of  society  be,  without  wit,  to 
enliven  and  brighten  it !  When  two  men  meet,  they 
seem  to  be,  as  it  were,  kept  at  bay  through  the  estranging 
effects  of  absence,  until  some  sportive  sally  opens  their 
hearts  to  each  other.  Nor  does  any  thing  spread  cheerful¬ 
ness  so  rapidly  over  a  whole  party,  or  an  assembly  of 
people,  however  large.  Reason  expands  the  soul  of  the 
philosopher.  Imagination  glorifies  the  poet,  and  breathes 
a  breath  of  spring  through  the  young  and  genial :  but  if 
we  take  into  account  the  numberless  glances  and  gleams 
whereby  wit  lightens  our  every-day  life,  I  hardly  know 
what  power  ministers  so  bountifully  to  the  innocent  plea¬ 
sures  of  mankind.”* 

Another  thomghtful  essayist  of  our  day  has  said,  “  If 
ever  a  people  required  to  be  amused,  it  is  we  sad-hearted 
Anglo-Saxons:”  (the  phrase  includes  us  ever-working 
Americans.)  “  Heavy  eaters,”  (rapidity  must  be  substi¬ 
tuted  for  weight  for  the  Anglo-Saxon  on  this  side  the 
ocean,)  “  hard  thinkers,  often  given  up  to  a  peculiar 
melancholy  of  our  own,  with  a  climate  that  for  months 
together  would  frown  away  mirth  if  it  could,  many  of  us 
with  very  gloomy  thoughts  about  our  hereafter, — if  ever 
there  were  a  people  who  should  avoid  increasing  their 
dulness  by  all  work  and  no  play,  we  are  that  people. 
‘  They  took  their  pleasures  sadly,’  says  Froissart,  ‘  after 
their  fashion.’  We  need  not  ask  of  what  nation  Froissart 
was  speaking.”')*  But  let  me  add,  that  the  blood  and  tem¬ 
perament  of  race  are  not  safeguards  of  contentment,  for  it  is 
with  the  most  vivacious  people,  Froissart’s  countrymen, 
that  the  perpetration  of  suicide  is  most  common. 

*  Archdeacon  Hare’s  Guesses  at  Truth,  first  series,  p.  316. 

f  Friends  in  Council,  part  i.  p.  56. 


< 


LITERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  IIUMOUR. 


347 


It  is  for  thoughtful  minds  that  the  agency  of  a  cheer¬ 
ful  literature  is  most  needed,  for  remember  that  it  is 
such  minds  that  are  most  exposed  to  morbid  moods, 
to  despondency,  to  discontent,  to  some  "dull  depression, 
more  fatal  to  the  energies  of  the  mind,  than  danger  oi 
earnest  labour,  which  nerve  the  spirit  to  encounter  them 
These  are  intellectual  and  moral  evils,  which  must  be  met 
and  mastered  by  thoughtful  self-discipline,  and  in  that 
discipline,  the  service  of  literature  may  be  found,  if  pro¬ 
perly  sought  for,  providing  as  it  does, in  such  varied  form, 
so  much  of  restorative  influence.  The  good  will  be 
gained,  not  so  much  by  seeking  it  in  books  especially  meant 
for  amusement,  as  in  the  culture  of  a  capacity  to  relish  wit 
and  humour,  as  they  are  blended  with  other  influences 
also  intended  to  give  strength  and  health  to  the  mind. 
The  recreative  power  of  literature  will  of  course  be  rela¬ 
tive  to  the  character  and  habits  of  the  reader,  and  happily 
it  is  as  largely  varied  as  they  are,  thus  suiting  their  vari¬ 
ous  needs.  It  is  stated  by  Lord  Holland  in  his  “  Foreign 
Reminiscences,”  that  Napoleon,  when  he  had  an  hour  for 
diversion,  not  unfrequently  employed  it  in  looking  over  a 
book  of  logarithms,  which  he  said  was  at  all  seasons  of 
his  life  a  recreation  to  him.*  It  would  be  curious,  and 


*  Lord  IIolland’3  Foreign  Reminiscences,  p.  174,  Am.  ed.  I  am 
rather  sorry  to  see  this  volume  quoted  as  authority  for  any  thing;  but 
as  it  is  not  matter  of  defamation,  it  may  be  credible.  I  know  nothing 
more  painful  in  political  literature  than  these  posthumous  effusions 
of  Lord  Holland,  who  was  known  on  this  side  the  Atlantic,  thanks  very 
much  to  one  of  Mr.  Macaulay’s  reviews,  as  a  good-humoured,  liberal 
nobleman,  in  the  sunshine  of  whose  hospitality  literary  men  of  England 
were  wont  to  congregate — who  was  a  scholar  and  a  gentle  man.  These 
books,  published  since  his  death,  as  well  those  relating  to  foreign  a» 
domestic  politics,  show  him  to  have  been  the  studious  recorder  rd 


S4S 


LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 


perhaps  not  unprofitable,  to  speculate  on  such  a  process  of 
recreation,  and  trace  its  relation  to  the  active  life  which 
was  refreshed  by  it.  The  poet  Shelley  is  said  to  have 
been  extremely  fond  of  mathematics,  and  every  hard,  dry 
science  j  and  I  can  well  conceive  that  such  fondness  may 
be  traced  to  the  relief  and  repose  which  such  subjects 
brought  to  one  whose  imagination  soared  amid  the  clouds, 
and  whose  moral  creed  was  filled  with  wild  and  wonder 
ing  speculations.  Another  poet,  whose  genius  had  wiser 
mastery  over  his  imagination,  Wordsworth,  in  the  poetic 
history  of  his  mind,  speaking  of  geometric  truths,  has  said, 
“  Mighty  is  the  charm 
Of  those  abstractions  to  a  mind  beset 
With  images  and  haunted  by  herself; 

And  specially  delightful  unto  me 
Was  that  clear  synthesis  built  up  aloft 
So  gracefully 

and  the  same  poet,  after  describing  the  agitation  of  hia 
mind  in  sharing  the  excitement  and  depression  of  a  tumul¬ 
tuous  condition  of  the  world,  says  that  he 

“  Turned  to  abstract  science,  and  there  sought 
Work  for  the  reasoning  faculty  enthroned, 

Where  the  disturbances  of  space  and  time, 

Whether  in  matters  various,  properties 
Inherent,  or  from  human  will  and  power 
Derived,  find  no  admission.” 


malignant  gossip  of  all  sorts  of  people.  Credulity,  the  wicked  credu¬ 
lity  that  inclines  to  believe  evil  of  one’s  kind,  is  hardly  a  sufficient  apo¬ 
logy  for  such  a  record.  For  its  publication  there  is  none.  His  enthu¬ 
siasm  (if  such  it  is)  for  one  so  selfish  and  defamatory  as  Napoleon,  is, 
in  my  poor  judgment,  eminently  characteristic.  Let  me  here  record  my 
wonder  how  any  American  man,  fond  of  the  institutions,  and  proud 
of  the  traditions  of  his  country,  can  have  sympathy  with  any  European 
Bonaparte.  W.  B.  R. 

*  The  Prelude,  book  vi.  p.  503,  and  book  xi.  p.  536.  A  m.  cd. 


LITERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  HUMOUR. 


319 


And,  in  like  manner,  we  may  suppose  that  it  was  recrea¬ 
tion  for  Napoleon  to  turn  away  from  a  world  in  which 
men  by  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  moved  for  life 
and  death,  by  his  controlling  will,  and  kingdoms  shifted 
about  “  like  clouds  obedient  to  his  breath” — to  turn  away 
from  such  life,  and  find  a  brief  and  happy  seclusion  in  the 
tranquil  and  enduring  truths  of  abstract  science.  It  may 
be,  too,  that  the  book  of  logarithms  brought  with  it  memo¬ 
ries  of  early  days,  before  he  began  to  bear  the  giant  bur¬ 
den  of  Europe’s  fortunes,  and  thus  carried  him  away  to 
breathe  in  spirit  the  clear  atmosphere  of  studious  boyhood. 

I  have  spoken  of  this  case  to  show  how  various  and 
relative  a  thing  is  recreation,  as  the  game  of  chess  is 
amusement  to  some  minds,  while  others  shrink  from  it,  as 
Sir  Walter  Scott  says  he  did,  as  from  a  toil  and  a  waste 
of  brains.*  Charles  Lamb  describes  the  old  lady  who 
went  so  earnestly  to  her  game  of  whist,  that  “she  could 
not  bear  to  have  her  noble  occupation,  to  which  she  wound 
up  her  faculties,  considered  in  the  light  of  unbending  the 
mind  after  serious  studies  in  recreation.  .  .  .  She  unbent 
her  mind  afterwards,  over  a  book.”*  In  like  manner,  with 
regard  to  books,  their  recreative  character  is  greatly  modi¬ 
fied  by  the  disposition  of  the  recipient.  Mr.  Dickens  has 
somewhere  a  story  of  a  sombre-spirited  sentimentalist,  who 
pronounced  Milton’s  “  L’ Allegro”  his  worst  performance, 
and  complained  of  Gray’s  Elegy  as  too  light  and  frivolous. 

If  the  case  of  Napoleon  shows  a  peculiar  recreation  con¬ 
genial  to  a  spirit  of  the  most  intense  energy,  literary  his¬ 
tory  tells  of  such  a  case  as  that  of  Cowper,  where  the 


*  Lockhart’s  Scott,  vol.  i.  p.  174. 

f  Mrs.  Battle’s  Opinions  of  Whist.  Lamb’s  Prose  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  74. 
30 


350 


LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 


hauntings  of  melancholy  were  allayed  by  sportive  inven¬ 
tion.  His  biographer  tells  us,  that  “  For  a  while  Lady 
Austes.’s  conversation  had  as  happy  an  effect  upon  the 
melancholy  spirit  of  Cowper  as  the  harp  of  David  upon 
Saul.  Whenever  the  cloud  seemed  to  be  coming  over 
him,  her  sprightly  powers  were  exerted  to  dispel  it.  One 
afternoon,  when  he  appeared  more  than  usually  depressed, 
she  told  him  the  story  of  John  Gilpin,  which  had  been 
told  to  her  in  her  childhood,  and  which,  in  her  relation 
tickled  his  fancy  as  much  as  it  has  that  of  thousands  and 
tens  of  thousands  since  in  his.  The  next  morning,  he 
said  to  her  that  he  had  been  kept  awake  during  the 
greater  part  of  the  night  by  thinking  of  the  story  and 
laughing  at  it,  and  that  he  had  turned  it  into  a  ballad. 
The  ballad  was  sent  to  Mr.  Unwin,  who  said  in  reply  that 
it  had  made  him  laugh  tears.  Cowper  himself  said  in 
one  of  his  letters :  ‘  If  I  trifle,  and  merely  trifle,  it  is 
because  I  am  reduced  to  it  by  necessity ;  a  melancholy, 
that  nothing  else  so  effectually  disperses,  engages  me 
sometimes  in  the  arduous  task  of  being  merry  by  force. 
And,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  most  ludicrous  lines  I 
ever  wrote  have  been  written  in  the  saddest  mood,  and  but 
for  that  saddest  mood,  perhaps,  had  never  been  written  at 
all."’* 

P>ut  it  is  not  only  for  their  recreative  agency  that  the 
faculties  of  wit  and  humour  are  to  be  considered;  they  are 
also  to  be  regarded  as  elements  of  genius,  as  entering  into 
the  constitution  of  the  highest  order  of  the  human  mind. 
I  do  not,  of  course,  mean  that  every  man  eminent  in  the 
world  of  letters  or  of  action  is  a  wit  or  a  humourist;  but 


*  Southey’s  Cowper,  vol.  ii.  p.  74. 


LITERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  HUMOUR. 


351 


that  there  is  abundant  proof,  either  in  acts  or  written 
words,  of  the  presence  of  these  faculties,  made  more  or  less 
manifest,  according  to  the  tenor  of  the  life  or  the  subject 
of  the  writings,  and  not  unfrequently  breaking  forth 
through  adverse  circumstances  of  life  or  unpropitious 
topics  of  books.  When  Dr.  Arnold  is  describing  the  great 
Carthaginian  hero  putting  on  a  variety  of  disguises  to 
baffle  the  attempts  of  assassins,  he  says  :  Hannibal  “  wore 
false  hair,  appearing  sometimes  as  a  man  of  mature  years, 
and  sometimes  with  the  grey  hair  of  old  age ;  and  if  he 
had  that  taste  for  humour  which  great  men  are  seldom 
without,  and  which  some  anecdotes  of  him  imply,  he  must 
have  been  often  amused  by  the  mistakes  thus  occasioned, 
and  have  derived  entertainment  from  that  which  policy  or 
necessity  dictated.”*  A  thoughtful  and  eloquent  defender 
of  Luther,  in  excusing  the  plainness,  and  even  coarseness, 
of  expression  for  which  he  has  been  reproached,  says, 
“  he  could  not  mince  his  words,  or  take  thought  about 
suiting  them  to  fastidious  ears,  even  if  there  had  been 
such  to  suit  them  to;  and  the  humour  with  which  he  was 
so  richly  gifted,  and  which  is  the  natural  associate  of  an 
intense  love  of  truth,  if  it  be  not  rather  a  particular  form 
and  manifestation  of  that  love,  led  him  to  strip  off  the 
artificial  drapery  and  conventional  formalities  of  life,  and 
to  look  straight  at  the  realities  hidden  beneath  them  in 
their  naked  contrasts  and  contradictions.”  I  quote  the 
passage  simply  as  an  authority  for  considering  humour  as 
a  “  natural  associate  of  an  intense  love  of  truth,  perhaps 
rather  a  particular  form  and  manifestation  of  that  love,” 
and  thus  explaining,  at  least  in  part,  how  it  enters  into  the 


*  History  of  Rome,  vol.  iii.  p  102. 


S52 


LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 


constitution  of  genius.  Observe,  too,  that  it  is  the  strong¬ 
est  and  most  capacious  mind  which  will  perceive  most 
keenly  and  feel  most  deeply  the  manifold  and  perpetually 
occurring  contradictions,  and  incongruities,  and  inconsist¬ 
encies  of  life,  the  slight  steppings  down  from  the  sublime 
to  the  ridiculous,  the  quaint  contact  of  the  comic  and  the 
solemn,  provoking  the  laugh  at  the  wrong  time  or  in  the 
wrong  place,  and  all  the  strange  combinations  which  grow 
out  of  man’s  mingled  nature  of  strength  and  weakness, 
which  a  thoughtful  mind  observes  in  others,  and  is  yet 
more  deeply  conscious  of  it  in  itself.  These  things  are 
the  themes  of  wit  and  humour.  There  is  another  order 
of  minds,  narrower  in  its  range  of  observation,  and  less  re¬ 
flective  on  its  own  being,  which,  dwelling  within  the  covert 
of  some  hypothesis  of  its  own,  shapes  the  world  to  its  own 
standard,  and  neither  sees  nor  feels  the  incongruities  of 
humanity.  Such  is  not  genius — but  a  dry,  hard,  and 
mechanical  sort  of  intellect,  and  wit  and  humour  are  all 
mystery  to  it. 

The  authors  who  deal  most  largely  with  human  nature 
are  those  in  whom  the  elements  of  wit  and  humour  will  be 
most  displayed — in  connection,  however,  with  serious  ele¬ 
ments.  This  will  be  seen  especially  in  those  writers  whose 
imaginations  have  produced  the  greatest  number  of  crea¬ 
tions — I  mean  of  invented  characters — representative  of  hu¬ 
manity.  In  English  literature,  the  three  who  may,  I  think, 
be  regarded  as  pre-eminent  for  the  number  and  life-like 
reality  of  their  creations,  are  Chaucer,  Shakspeare,  and 
Scott;  and  in  their  writings  may  be  found  the  finest  spe¬ 
cimens  of  genuine  humour,  coupled,  too,  with  tragic  power 
equally  admirable.  It  is  remarkable,  too,  to  observe  how, 
in  an  early  age,  the  large  imagination  of  Chaucer  blended 


LITERATUKE  OF  WIT  AND  HUMOUR. 


353 


with  the  tenderest  pathos  a  humour  coarse  at  times,  but 
again  as  delicate  as  any  of  an  age  of  refinement — sucti  as 
his  description  of  the  “  Sergeant  of  the  Law,”  which  is 
like  a  smile  of  kindly-natured  humour,  rather  than  a  stroke 
or  a  sneer  of  satire  : 

“Discreet  he  was,  and  of  great  reverence 
lie  seemed  such,  his  words  were  so  wise : 

-*  »  -*  -y 

Nowhere  so  busy  a  man  as  he  there  n’as, 

And  yet  he  seemed  busier  than  he  was.” 

Examples  without  number  of  Sir  Walter  Scott’s  genial 
humour,  as  displayed  in  the  personages  of  his  novels,  will 
rise  up  to  the  thoughts  of  any  one.  How  beautifully  is 
it  interwoven  with  the  serious  passages  in  the  Antiquary ! 
How  it  gleams  through  the  clouds  of  civil  war  and  the 
gloom  of  Puritan  severity  in  Old  Mortality !  and  what  a 
fine  relief  does  it  not  give  to  the  deeper  tragedy  of  the 
Bride  of  Lammermoor  !  In  Shakspeare,  the  whole  subject 
might  be  studied  and  illustrated  through  a  boundless 
variety  of  character,  from  the  malevolent  and  wicked  wit 
of  Iago,  with  its  serpent-like  venom,  the  inexhaustible 
resources  of  Falstaff,  the  morbid  humour  of  Jaques,  or  the 
healthy  humour  of  Falconbridge,  and  the  many  other 
phases  of  these  faculties  in  his  men  and  women. 

These  powers  may  be  discovered  also  in  other  great 
poets  of  our  language,  the  subjects  or  forms  of  whose 
poems  were  less  favourable  to  their  appearance.  The  pen¬ 
sive  atmosphere  with  which  the  sage  and  solemn  spirit  of 
Spenser  has  enveloped  the  region  of  his  Faery  Land,  admits, 
at  times,  some  rays  of  a  quaint  humour.  In  Milton,  the 
powers  assume  so  stern  an  aspect,  that  one  hesitates  in  as¬ 
sociating  them  with  wit  and  humour,  and  yet,  assuredly, 
30* 


LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 


354 

such  are  the  faculties,  in  their  most  repulsive  shape,  both 
in  his  prose  writings  and  his  poems,  betraying  how  a  grand 
and  noble  spirit  was  imbittered  by  the  adverse  circum¬ 
stances  of  both  public  and  private  life.  It  was  eminently 
characteristic  for  him  to  speak  of  “  anger  and  laughter,” 
as  “  those  two  most  rational  faculties  of  human  intellect,” 
and  to  boast  of  that  “  vein  of  laughing,”  which  “  hath  oft- 
times  a  strong  and  sinewy  force  in  teachingand  confuting.”* 
The  presence  of  these  faculties  in  the  .greatest  English 
prose  writers  is  also  susceptible  of  proof.  In  the  most 
illustrious  of  the  old  divines,  they  appear  in  a  way  that  is 
not  permitted  to  later  theologians — I  refer  not  only  to 
such  instances  as  the  works  of  the  church  historian, 
Thomas  Fuller,  or  the  sermons  of  “  the  witty  Dr.  South,” 
but  also  to  the  humour  which  is  blended  with  the  reason¬ 
ings  of  Barrow  and  the  poetic  eloquence  of  Jeremy  Tay¬ 
lor.  The  wit  of  Swift  is  universally  recognised  as  his 
most  effective  weapon  :  and  in  another  masculine  mind, 
also  distempered  by  disease  as  Swift’s  was,  there  was  a 
sort  of  rough  humour,  in  Dr.  Johnson’s.  The  high-toned 
eloquence  of  Burke,  though  far  from  sparkling  with 
wit  like  Sheridan’s,  was  not  without  its  humour :  ob¬ 
serve  it,  too,  in  his  chief  political  treatise — the  quiet 
humour  for  example,  in  the  well-known  comparison  of 
the  noisy,  factious  pamphleteers  with  solid  unloquacious 
English  sobriety  “Because  half-a-dozen  grasshoppers 
under  a  fern  make  the  field  ring  with  their  importunate 
chirp,  while  tnousands  of  great  cattle  reposing  beneath  the 
shadow  of  the  British  oak,  chew  the  cud  and  are  silent, 


■*  Milton’s  Prose  Works.  Preface  to  Animadversions  upon  the  Re¬ 
monstrants’  Defence  against  Smectymnuus,  p.  55. 


LITERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  HUMOUR. 


355 


pray  do  not  imagine  that  those  who  make  the  noise  are 
the  only  inhabitants  of  the  field ;  that,  of  course,  they  are 
many  in  number;  or  that,  after  all,  they  are  other  than 
the  little  shrivelled,  meagre,  hopping,  though  loud  and 
troublesome,  insects  of  the  hour.” 

It  is  to  one  of  the  great  divines  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
ury  that  we  owe  the  most  famous  description  (it  at¬ 
tempts  not  definition)  of  Wit :  I  refer,  of  course,  to  that 
passage  so  often,  and  yet  never  too  often,  quoted  in  Bar¬ 
row’s  sermon  “  against  foolish  talking  and  jesting.”  It 
was  composed  at  a  time  when  the  word  “  Wit”  was  begin¬ 
ning  to  change  its  original  meaning  of  mental  power  for 
the  more  limited  sense  of  later  times,  and  when  the  faculty 
itself,  having  the  special  favour  of  the  “  merry  monarch” 
was  in  unwonted,  and,  it  may  be  added,  wanton  activity. 
Dr.  Barrow  said,  “To  the  question  what  the  thing  we 
speak  of  is,  or  what  this  facetiousness  doth  import  ?  I 
might  reply  as  Democritus  did  to  him  that  asked  the  defi¬ 
nition  of  a  man,  ’Tis  that  which  we  all  see  and  know:  any 
one  better  apprehends  what  it  is  by  acquaintance  than  I 
can  inform  him  by  description.  It  is,  indeed,  a  thing  so 
versatile  and  multiform,  appearing  in  so  many  shapes,  so 
many  postures,  so  many  garbs,  so  variously  apprehended 
by  several  eyes  and  judgments,  that  it  seemeth  no  less 
hard  to  settle  a  clear  and  certain  notion  thereof,  than  to 
make  a  portrait  of  Proteus,  or  to  define  the  figure  of  ? 
fleeting  air.  Sometimes  it  lieth  in  a  pat  allusion  to  a 
known  story,  or  in  seasonable  application  of  a  trivial  say¬ 
ing,  or  in  forging  an  apposite  tale  :  sometimes  it  piayeth 
in  words  and  phrases,  taking  advantage  from  the  ambi¬ 
guity  of  their  sense  or  the  affinity  of  their  sound :  some¬ 
times  it  is  wrapped  in  a  dress  of  humorous  expression  . 


556 


LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 


sometimes  it  lurketh  under  an  odd  similitude  :  sometimes 
it  is  lodged  in  a  sly  question,  in  a  smart  answer,  in  a 
quirkish  reason,  in  a  shrewd  intimation,  in  cunningly  di¬ 
verting  or  cleverly  retorting  an  objection  :  sometimes  it 
is  couched  in  a  bold  scheme  of  speech,  in  a  tart  irony,  in 
a  lusty  hyperbole,  in  a  startling  metaphor,  in  a  plausible 
reconciling  of  contradictions,  or  in  acute  nonsense  :  some¬ 
times  a  scenical  representation  of  persons  or  things,  a 
counterfeit  speech,  a  mimical  look  or  gesture,  passeth  for 
it:  sometimes  an  affected  simplicity,  sometimes  a  pre¬ 
sumptuous  boldness,  giveth  it  being;  sometimes  it  riseth 
from  a  lucky  hitting  upon  what  is  strange,  sometimes  from 
a  crafty  wresting  obvious  matter  to  the  purpose;  often  it 
consisteth  in  one  knows  not  what,  and  springeth  up  one 
can  hardly  tell  how.  Its  ways  are  unaccountable  and  in¬ 
explicable,  being  answerable  to  the  numberless  rovings  of 
fancy  and  windings  of  language.  It  is,  in  short,  a  man¬ 
ner  of  speaking  out  of  the  simple  and  plain  way,  (such  as 
reasoning  teacheth  and  proveth  things  by,)  which,  by  a 
pretty  surprising  uncouthness  in  conceit  or  expression, 
doth  affect  and  amuse  the  fancy,  stirring  it  to  some 
wonder  and  breeding  some  delight  thereto.” 

One  cannot  read  this  large  induction  and  analytical 
description  of  the  forms  of  wit,  from  the  higher  inventions 
down  to  “  acute  nonsense,”  without  thinking  how  thought¬ 
fully  this  great  and  learned  divine  must  have  observed  the 
wits  of  the  times  of  Charles  the  Second,  and  how  genially 
he  must  have  received  what  he  so  wisely  expounded !  Nor 
can  I  discover  that  the  metaphysicians  have  been  able  to 
advance  beyond  this  description  to  the  more  precise  ground 
of  definition.  The  most  acute  of  the  Greek  philosophers, 
Aristotle,  gave  what  is  at  best  a  negative  definition  of  the 


LITERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  HUMOUR. 


357 


laughable,  when  he  said  it  depended  on  what  is  out  of  its 
proper  time  and  place,  yet  without  danger  or  pain.  That  re¬ 
markable  but  wrong-headed  English  philosopher,  Hobbes, 
who  thought  that  war  was  man’s  natural  state,  defined 
laughter  to  be  “  a  sudden  glory  arising  from  a  sudden 
conception  of  some  eminency  in  ourselves,  by  comparison 
with  infirmity  of  others  or  our  own  infirmity.”  The  defi¬ 
nitions  given  by  Locke  and  by  the  Scotch  rhetoricians, 
and  the  analysis  made  by  Coleridge  and  by  Sydney  Smith, 
have  done  little  more  than  trace  the  effect  of  wit  or  hu¬ 
mour  to  an  agreeable  surprise  occasioned  by  an  unusual 
connection  of  thoughts.  Still  more  difficult  would  it  be 
to  trace  the  subtle  relations  between  wit  and  humour,  and 
to  analyze  that  higher  form  in  which  both  are  combined, 
but  for  which  language  helps  us  with  no  name.  Wit  may, 
I  think,  be  regarded  as  a  purely  intellectual  process,  while 
humour  is  a  sense  of  the  ridiculous  controlled  by  feeling, 
and  coexistent  often  with  the  gentlest  and  deepest  pathos, 
visible,  it  may  be,  even  in  those  smiles  which  have  been 
finely  described,  as  “a  sad  heart’s  sunshine.” 

Often  the  simple  sense  of  incongruity  produces  the 
effect  of  the  laughable — the  unfitness  of  the  means  to  the 
end,  as  in  some  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  definitions,  where  his 
Latinized  dialect  makes  him  like  the  interpreter  in  Sheri¬ 
dan’s  farce,  the  harder  to  be  understood  of  the  two — his 
definition  of  “Network — any  thing  reticulated  or  decus¬ 
sated  at  equal  distances,  with  interstices  between  the 
intersections,”  or  when,  in  the  preface  to  his  Dictionary, 
in  explanation  of  the  difficulty  of  ranging  the  meanings  of 
a  word  in  order,  he  asks :  “  When  the  radical  idea  branches 
out  into  parallel  ramifications,  how  can  a  consecutive 
series  be  formed  of  senses  in  their  nature  collateral  V 
X 


35$ 


LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 


Again,  when  Johnson  defines  “  Excise,”  to  be  “  a  hateful 
tax  levied  upon  commodities,  and  adjudged,  not  by  the 
common  judges  of  property,  but  wretches  hired  by  those 
to  whom  excise  is  paid:”  and  Pension,  to  be  “an  allow¬ 
ance  made  to  any  one  without  an  equivalent.  In  England 
it  is  generally  understood  to  mean  pay  given  to  a  state¬ 
hireling  for  treason  to  his  country” — a  comic  effect  is  pro¬ 
duced  by  the  unexpected  encounter  with  such  a  fervid 
temper  among  the  dispassionate  definitions  of  a  dictionary, 
almost  as  if  one  should  meet  with  a  spiteful  demonstration 
in  geometry.*  To  an  ear  accustomed  to  simple  English, 
simple  in  the  choice  and  in  the  arrangement  of  the  words, 
the  highly  Latinized  and  stately  sentences  of  Dr.  Johnson 
now  make  an  impression  bordering  sometimes  on  the  lu¬ 
dicrous — owing,  I  think,  to  the  unnatural  disparity  be¬ 
tween  his  style  and  the  ordinary  colloquial  use  of  lan¬ 
guage:  this  was  curiously  shown  by  a  practical  joke  that 
was  practised  on  that  worthy  and  simple-mannered  man, 
the  late  Sir  David  Wilkie,  by  a  fellow-painter  and  his 
brother,  and  described  in  the  Memoir  of  Collins,  the  land¬ 
scape-painter :  “Mr.  Collins’s  brother  Francis  possessed  a 
remarkably  retentive  memory,  which  he  was  accustomed 
to  use  for  the  amusement  of  himself  and  others  in  the  fol¬ 
lowing  manner.  He  learnt  by  heart  a  whole  number  of 
one  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  ‘Ramblers,’  and  used  to  occasion 
considerable  diversion  to  those  in  the  secret,  by  repeating 
it  all  through  to  a  new  company,  in  a  conversational  tone, 
as  if  it  was  the  accidental  product  of  his  own  fancy, — now 

*  It  may  have  been  a  definition  like  that  of  “excise,”  whicn  occa¬ 
sioned  the  criticism  from  a  Scotch  peasant,  whom  Sir  tVatter  Scott 
found  reading  aloud  the  Dictionary  containing  the  autnorities,  “that 
they  were  Draw  stories,  but  unco  short.”  H.  R. 


LITERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  HUMOUR. 


359 


addressing  bis  flow  of  moral  eloquence  to  one  astonished 
auditor,  and  now  to  another.  One  day,  when  the  two 
brothers  were  dining  at  Wilkie’s,  it  was  determined  to  try 
the  experiment  upon  their  host.  After  dinner,  accord¬ 
ingly,  Mr.  Collins  paved  the  way  for  the  coming  speech, 
by  leading  the  conversation  imperceptibly  to  the  subject 
of  the  paper  in  the  ‘  Rambler.’  At  the  right  moment, 
Francis  Collins  began.  As  the  first  grand  Johnsonian 
sentences  struck  upon  his  ear,  (uttered,  it  should  be  re¬ 
membered,  in  the  most  elaborately  careless  and  conversa¬ 
tional  manner,)  Wilkie  started  at  the  high  tone  that  the 
conversation  had  suddenly  assumed,  and  looked  vainly  for 
explanation  to  his  friend  Collins,  who,  on  his  part,  sat  with 
his  eyes  respectfully  fixed  on  his  brother,  all  wrapt  attention 
to  the  eloquence  that  was  dropping  from  his  lips.  Once 
or  twice,  with  perfect  mimicry  of  the  conversational  cha¬ 
racter  he  had  assumed,  Francis  Collins  hesitated,  stam¬ 
mered,  and  paused,  as  if  collecting  his  thronging  ideas. 
At  one  or  two  of  these  intervals,  Wilkie  endeavoured  to 
speak,  to  ask  a  moment  for  consideration ;  but  the  torrent 
of  his  guest’s  eloquence  was  not  to  be  delayed  .  .  .  until 
at  last  it  reached  its  destined  close;  and  then  Wilkie, 
who,  as  host,  thought  it  his  duty  to  break  silence  by  the 
first  compliment,  exclaimed,  with  the  most  perfect  uncon¬ 
sciousness  of  the  trick  that  had  been  played  him,  ‘  Ay, 
ay,  Mr.  Francis;  verra clever — (though  I  did  not  under¬ 
stand  it  all) — verra  clever  !’  ” 

It  not  unfrequently  happens,  also,  that  a  sense  of  the 
ludicrous  in  style  may  be  traced  in  a  false  and  florid  rhe¬ 
toric  to  the  incongruous  combination  of  literal  and  figura¬ 
tive  forms  of  expression.  Reading  the  Earl  of  Ellesmere's 
agreeable  and  usually  well-written  History  of  the  Two 


LECTCRE  ELEVENTH. 


380 

Sieges  of  Vienna,  I  noted  this  sentence  :  speaking  of  So- 
bieski,  he  says,  “  inspired  by  the  memory  of  former  victo¬ 
ries,  ...  he  flung  his  powerful  frame  into  the  saddle, 
and  his  great  soul  into  the  cause.”  This  is  that  juxtapo¬ 
sition  of  the  literal  and  metaphorical,  which  is  best  exem¬ 
plified  by  a  well-known  instance  in  a  panegyric  on  the 
celebrated  Robert  Boyle,  in  which  he  was  described  as 

father  of  chemistry,  and  brother  of  the  Earl  of  Cork.” 
Again,  another  form  of  the  literary  ludicrous,  is  in  the  in¬ 
congruous  combination  of  metaphors  produced  by  the 
want  of  discipline  in  speech,  increased,  perhaps,  by  an  ex¬ 
cess  of  unguided  fancy.  Lord  Castlereagh’s  parliamentary 
speeches  are  said  to  have  been  full  of  such  confusion  of 
language — without,  however,  spoiling  the  speaker’s  high 
bearing  and  elegance  of  manner  :  in  one  of  these  speeches 
he  used  that  sentence  in  which,  perhaps,  there  is  as  curi¬ 
ous  an  infelicity  of  speech  and  confusion  of  figure  as  ever 
were  crowded  into  as  small  a  number  of  words,  “  And 
now,  sir,  I  must  embark  into  the  feature  on  which  this 
question  chiefly  hinges.”* 

'*  My  impression  is,  that  these  traditions  as  to  Lord  Castlereagh  are 
not  now  regarded  as  trustworthy.  His  is  one  of  the  cases  (I  speak 
of  the  American  mind)  in  which  a  healthy  revolution  of  opinion  may 
be  traced.  Thirty — nay,  twenty — years  ago,  when  Gallican  sympathies 
were  active,  and  Moore’s  clever  pasquinades  in  every  one’s  mouth,  Lord 
Castlereagh  was  an  especial  object  of  disparagement.  Let  any  one 
study  bis  correspondence,  lately  published,  especially  in  1814  and 
1815,  and  it  will  he  seen  what  a  manly,  honest-minded  statesman  he 
was.  It  is  a  matter,  I  believe,  of  well-ascertained  diplomatic  tradi¬ 
tion,  that  such  was  his  uniform  temper  and  tone  in  all  his  relations  to 
this  country.  The  fact,  too,  is  unquestionable,  that  extreme  conserva¬ 
tives,  such  as  Lord  Castlereagh  and  Lord  Aberdeen  have  always  shown 
more  consideration,  and  made  themselves  more  acceptable  to  our  re¬ 
presentatives  abroad,  than  others  claiming  t9  he  more  liberal.  W.  B.  R, 


LITERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  HUMOUR. 


361 


And  so  in  that  form  of  error,  which  is  regarded  as  be¬ 
longing  pre-eminently  to  Lord  Castlereagh’s  countrymen, 
that  strange  mixture  of  error  and  accuracy,  called  an 
“Irish  bull,”  the  ludicrous  effect  is,  I  believe,  produced 
by  the  sense  working  its  way  out  through  the  complexity 
and  confusion  of  the  phrase. 

Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  the  account  of  his  tour  in  Ireland, 
mentions  an  occurrence  which  illustrates  this  form  of  the 
laughable,  for  it  is  a  sort  of  bull  in  action.  “  They  were 
widening,”  he  says,  “  the  road  near  Lord  Claremont’s  seat 
as  we  passed.  A  number  of  cars  were  drawn  up  together 
at  a  particular  point,  where  we  also  halted,  as  we  under¬ 
stood  they  were  blowing  a  rock,  and  the  shot  was  expected 
presently  to  go  off.  After  waiting  two  minutes  or  so,  a 
fellow  called  out  something,  and  our  carriage  as  a  planet, 
and  the  cars  for  satellites,  started  all  forward  at  once,  the 
Irishmen  whooping  and  the  horses  galloping.  Unable  to 
learn  the  meaning  of  this,  I  was  only  left  to  suppose  that 
they  had  delayed  firing  the  intended  shot  till  we  should 
pass,  and  that  we  were  passing  quickly  to  make  the  delay 
as  short  as  possible.  No  such  thing;  by  dint  of  making 
great  haste,  we  got  within  ten  yards  of  the  rock  just  when 
the  blast  took  place,  throwing  dust  and  gravel  in  our  car¬ 
riage  ;  and  had  our  postillion  brought  us  a  little  nearer, 
(it  was  not  for  want  of  hollowing  and  flogging  that  he 
did  not,)  we  should  have  had  a  still  more  serious  share  of 
the  explosion.  The  explanation  I  received  from  the 
drivers  was,  that  they  had  been  told  by  the  overseer  that 
as  the  n  ine  had  been  so  long  in  going  off,  he  dared 
say  we  would  have  time  to  pass  it,  so  we  just  waited 
long  enough  to  make  the  danger  imminent.  I  have 
only  to  add,  that  two  or  three  people  got  behind  the 


362 


LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 


carriage,  just  for  nothing  hut  to  see  how  our  honours  got 
past.”* 

It  is  curious,  let  me  remark,  to  observe  how  a  form  of 
expression  which  is  essentially  a  bull,  may  be  lifted  out  of 
the  region  of  the  ridiculous,  as  in  that  truly  poetic  expres¬ 
sion  of  Keats : 

“So  the  two  brothers  and  their  murdered  man 
Rode  toward  fair  Florence.”! 

Now,  if  that  be  looked  at  in  a  prosaic  point  of  view,  it 
becomes  a  downright  blunder,  but,  poetically,  you  see  in 
it  the  activity  of  the  imagination  darting  forward  to  the 
murder,  a  “  ghastly  foregone  conclusion,”  as  Leigh  Hunt 
has  well  called  it. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  incongruity  of  style :  there  may 
also  be  such  incongruity  of  time  as  to  make  the  anachron¬ 
ism  laughable.  Washington  Irving,  one  of  the  finest  of 
modern  humorous  writers,  has  shown  this  in  that  practical 
anachronism:  “Rip  Yan  Winkle.”  It  is,  I  believe, 
Horace  Walpole,  who  tells  of  one  of  the  family  pictures 
of  the  De  Levis,  a  French  family  that  prided  itself  on  its 
great  antiquity ;  it  was  a  picture  of  an  antediluvian  scene,  in 
which  Noah  was  represented  going  into  the  ark  with  a 
bundle  of  the  archives  of  the  house  of  De  Levi  under' his 
arm. |  I  have  myself  seen  in  a  private  library  in  this  city 
an  old  Bible,  with  engravings,  Dutch,  I  believe  they  were; 
one  of  which  pictured  an  Old  Testament  event;  in  the 
foreground  Samson  slaying  the  lion,  if  I  remember  rightly, 


*  Lockhart’s  Scott. 

t  Keats’s  Poetical  Works,  p.  42.  Isabella,  or  the  Pot  of  Basil. 

{  This  is  in  a  note  by  Lord  Dover.  Horace  Walpole’s  joke  is  rather 
loss  decorous.  Collected  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  298.  W.  B.  R. 


LITERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  HUMOUR. 


363 


and  in  the  background  a  man  with  a  fowling-piece  shoot¬ 
ing  snipe. 

These  are  broad  incongruities,  bordering  upon  the  farci¬ 
cal  :  there  are  others,  either  wilful  or  unconscious,  which 
are  more  delicate  in  their  impression.  When  Lady  Sale 
made  in  her  diary  the  simple  entry,  “  Earthquakes  as 
usual/'  the  humour  was  in  the  coolness  of  the  womanly 
courage,  and  the  notion  of  the  frequency  coupled  with  one 
of  the  rarest  and  most  appalling  of  earthly  perils.  It  was 
not  unlike  the  advertisement  beginning,  “  Anybody  in 
want  of  a  diving-bell,”  as  if  a  diving-bell  was  one  of  the 
common  wants  in  society.  A  quaint  example  recurs  to 
my  mind  in  this  connection :  it  is  in  Horrebou’s  History 
of  Iceland,  an  old  folio  volume,  which  is  divided  into 
chapters  according  to  various  subjects:  one  of  these  is 
headed  (chapter  47,)  “  Concerning  Owls.”  I  can  quote 
the  whole  chapter  without  fatiguing  you,  for  it  is  in  these 
words :  “  There  are  in  Iceland  no  owls  of  any  kind  what¬ 
ever.”  Yet  the  historian  seems  to  have  considered  him¬ 
self  under  some  obligation  to  that  species  of  birds,  so  far 
as  to  devote  a  chapter  to  their  absence. 

These  unexpected  connections,  which  are  produced  by 
wit'or  humour,  carried  beyond  the  mere  ludicrous  effect, 
are  seen  also  subserving  argumentation,  as  these  processes 
are  combined  by  Swift  in  his  “  Drapier’s  Letters,”  and 
other  occasional  pieces ;  by  De  Foe,  or  in  later  times  by  Wal¬ 
ter  Scott,  in  his  letters  on  the  Scotch  currency  question; 
and  yet  more  in  Sydney  Smith’s  writings,  the  wittiest, 
reasoning  and  satire  in  the  language.  There  is,  perhaps 
no  more  characteristic  passage  than  that  suggested  by  his 
reflections  on  the  learned  prolixity  of  Dr.  Parr.  “  There 
is  an  event,”  he  goes  on  to  say,  “  recorded  in  the  Bible, 


364  LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 

which  men  who  write  books  should  keep  constantly  in 
their  remembrance.  It  is  there  set  forth,  that  many  cen¬ 
turies  ago  the  earth  was  covered  with  a  great  flood,  by 
which  the  whole  of  the  human  race,  with  the  exception  of 
one  family,  were  destroyed.  It  appears  also,  that  from 
thence  a  great  alteration  was  made  in  the  longevity  of 
mankind,  who,  from  a  range  of  seven  hundred  or  eight 
hundred  years,  were  confined  to  their  present  period  of 
seventy  or  eighty  years.  This  epoch  in  the  history  of 
man  gave  birth  to  the  twofold  division  of  the  antediluvian 
and  the  postdiluvian  style  of  writing,  the  latter  of  which 
naturally  contracted  itself  into  those  inferior  limits  which 
were  better  accommodated  to  the  abridged  duration  of 
human  life  and  literary  labour.  Now  to  forget  this  event, 
to  write  without  the  fear  of  the  deluge  before  his  eyes, 
and  to  handle  a  subject  as  if  mankind  could  lounge  over 
a  pamphlet  for  ten  years,  as  before  their  submersion,  is  to 
be  guilty  of  the  most  grievous  error  into  which  a  writer 
cau  possibly  fall.  The  author  of  this  book  should  call  in 
the  aid  of  some  brilliant  pencil,  and  cause  the  distressing 
scenes  of  the  deluge  to  be  pourtrayed  in  the  most  lively 
coiours  for  his  use.  He  should  gaze  at  Noah,  and  be 
brief.  The  ark  should  constantly  remind  him  of  the  little 
time  there  is  left  for  reading;  and  he  should  learn,  as 
they  did  in  the  ark,  to  crowd  a  great  deal  of  matter  into 
a  very  little  compass.'’’*  This  was  written  in  Sslnej 
Smith’s  early  reviewing  days;  but  his  wit  took  a  more 
concentrated  form,  as  when  he  said  of  Lord  John  Russel, 
Ilis  worst  failure  is  that  he  is  utterly  ignorant  of  all 
moral  fear ;  there  is  nothing  he  would  not  undertake.  1 


*  Edinburgh  Review,  1809.  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  208. 


LITERATURE  OF  IV I T  AND  IIUMOUR. 


36i 


believe  he  would  perform  the  operation  for  the  stone,  build 
St.  Peter’s,  or  assume  (with  or  without  ten  minutes’  notice) 
the  command  of  the  channel  fleet;  and  no  one  would  dis¬ 
cover  by  his  manner  that  the  patient  had  died,  the  church 
tumbled  down,  and  the  channel  fleet  been  knocked  to 
atoms;”  and  then  he  adds  quietly  in  a  note,  “Another 
peculiarity  of  the  Kussels  is,  that  they  never  alter  their 
opinions :  they  are  an  excellent  race,  but  they  must  be 
trepanned  before  they  can  be  convinced.”*  Nay,  some¬ 
times  the  subtle  element  is  concentrated  in  a  single  word 
or  phrase,  as  when  he  speaks  of  “  a  gentleman  lately  from 
the  Pyramids  or  the  upper  cataracts,  let  loose  upon  the 
drawing-room;”  or  that  phrase,  so  excellent  in  the  satire, 
and  admitting  unfortunately  of  such  frequent  application, 
which  mentions  an  orator  “splashing  in  the  froth  of  his 
own  rhetoric” — a  descriptive  image  which  is  worth  a  whole 
chapter  of  rhetorical  admonition. 

This  combination  of  wit  and  reasoning  makes  also  much 
of  the  virtue  of  that  instruction  which,  in  Fables,  charms 
the  mind  of  childhood,  and  is  not  cast  aside  by  mature 
reason.  It  enters,  too,  into  a  people’s  instruction  by  pro¬ 
verbs,  which  have  been  happily  described  as  “  the  wisdom 
of  many  and  the  wit  of  one.” 

Oue  of  the  most  remarkable  uses  of  wit  and  humour,  is 
that  which  combines  them  with  tragedy,  and  makes  them 
subservient  to  tragic  effect.  These  combinations  seem  to 
be  denied  to  modern  art  by  the  refinement  or  daintiness 
of  later  times;  and  by  such  denial,  modern  art  loses  much 
of  the  power  which  resulted  from  that  natural  blending 
of  the  humorous  and  the  serious,  each  equally  earnest. 


*  Second  Letter  to  Archdeacon  Singleton,  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  193,  194. 
31* 


3G6 


LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 


which  may  be  seen  in  the  early  minstrelsy,  and  in  the 
highest  form  of  genius  and  art  in  Shakspeare’s  deepest 
tragedies.  The  most  careless  reader  must  have  noticed 
how  profoundly  the  tragic  pathos  of  King  Lear  is  deepened 
by  the  wild  wit  and  pathetic  humour  of  that  faithful 
and  full-hearted  follower — the  fool.  Kemember  how,  in 
Hamlet,  one  of  the  most  solemn  scenes  is  preceded  by 
the  quaint  professional  witticisms  of  the  gravedigger, 
so  different  and  yet  not  discordant.  In  Macbeth  the  brief 
and  awful  interval  between  the  murder  of  Duncan,  and 
the  disclosure  of  it,  is  filled  with  that  rudely-comic  passage 
of  the  drunken,  half-sobered,  porter,  to  whose  gross  jocu¬ 
larity  you  pass  from  the  high-wrought  frenzy  of  Macbeth, 
reeking  with  his  victim’s  blood,  and  from  the  yet  more 
fearful  atrocity  of  his  wife,  to  return  quickly  to  the  tragic 
horror  on  the  discovery  of  the  murder;  and  in  that  transi¬ 
tion,  through  a  species  of  the  comic,  the  harmony  is  pre¬ 
served  by  the  quaint  allusions  to  hell  and  the  vain  equivo¬ 
cations  to  heaven. 

Another  kindred  combination,  which  also  shows  a  unity 
connecting  the  serious  and  the  sportive,  proving  what 
Socrates  is  said  to  have  asserted,  that  there  is  a  common 
ground  for  tragedy  and  comedy,  is  in  that  contrast  between 
the  thought  or  feeling  and  its  expression,  which  is  termed 
“  irony.”  It  is  the  humorous  wresting  of  language  from 
its  literal  use  for  the  expression  of  feeling,  either  happy 
or  painful,  but  too  vehement  to  be  contented  with  that 
literal  use.  The  pensive  perplexity  of  a  gentle  and  phi¬ 
losophic  soul  like  Hamlet,  bewildered  and  self-secluded  in 
a  wicked  world,  finds  relief  in  almost  every  form  of  bitter 
or  tianquil  humour  for  meditations  and  for  emotions  that 
overmastered  him.  When  the  thoughtful  spirit  of  Mac- 


LITERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  IIUMOCR. 


8C7 


beth  is  distorted  by  guilt,  and  as  the  agony  of  that  guilt 
grows  more  and  more  intense,  the  pent-up  misery  either 
flows  forth  in  a  subdued  irony,  or  breaks  out  in  that  which 
is  fierce  and  frenzied.  In  one  very  familiar  passage,  the 
beauty  of  the  expression  makes  many  a  reader  forget  that 
it  is  pure  and  essential  irony :  when  Macbeth  puts  to  the 
Doctor  the  simple  and  literal  inquiry  after  Lady  Mabeth  : 

“  How  does  your  patient,  doctor  ? 

Doctor.  Not  so  sick,  my  lord, 

As  sho  is  troubled  with  thick-coming  fancies. 

That  keep  her  from  her  rest.” 

Then  comes  the  deep  feeling,  with  its  ironical  questions, 
sounding  more  like  soliloquy  : 

“ Cure  her  of  that: 

Canst  tbou  not  minister  to  a  mind  diseased  ? 

Pluck  from  the  memory  a  rooted  sorrow? 

Raze  out  the  written  troubles  of  the  brain  ? 

And,  with  some  sweet,  oblivious  antidote, 

Cleanse  the  stuff’d  bosom  of  that  perilous  grief 
Which  weighs  upon  the  heart?” 

The  literal  answer — 

“  Therein  the  patient 
Must  minister  to  himself” — 

brings  him  back  to  reality  with  the  exclamation, 

“  Throw  physic  to  the  dogs.  I’ll  none  of  it !” 

But,  even  in  the  irritable  putting  on  of  his  armour,  the 
bitter  relief  of  an  ironical  humour  comes  again  in  ano 
\her  form  : 

“  What  rhubarb,  senna,  or  what  purgative  drug 
Would  scour  these  English  honce  ?” 

If  the  truthfulness  of  such  use  of  irony  be  doubted,  let 


LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 


S6S 

it  be  remembered  how  abuudantly  and  remarkably  it  per¬ 
vades  Holy  Writ.  I  do  not  refer  merely  to  the  bitter, 
ironical  taunts  which  the  prophet  hurled  at  the  priests  of 
Baal,  but  to  the  manifold  use  of  it  in  the  expression  of 
thoughts  and  emotions  affecting  the  spiritual  intercourse 
of  man  and  his  Maker.  Remember  how  something  of 
the  kind  breaks  out  in  the  very  midst  of  St.  Paul’s  most 
solemn  argument.  Again,  it  is  not  contrary  to  nature — 
it  is  not  a  levity  unworthy  of  man’s  nature — that  these 
playful  faculties  make  their  appearance  in  'the  most  awful 
realities  of  life.  The  gentle  spirit  of  Anne  Boleyn  was 
pleasant  with  the  headsman  on  the  scaffold;  and  so 

“  More’s  gay  genius  played 
With  the  inoffensive  sword  of  native  wit, 

Than  the  bare  axe  more  luminous  and  keen.”®' 

The  power  of  wit  to  combine  itself  harmoniously  and 
vigorously  with  sagacity  and  seriousness,  is  eminently  ex¬ 
emplified  in  all  the  works  of  that  remarkable  author  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  the  church  historian,  Thomas 
Fuller,  whose  wit,  in  the  largeness  of  its  circuit,  the  va¬ 
riety  of  its  expression,  its  exuberance,  and  its  admirable 
sanity,  stands  second  only  to  that  of  Shakspeare.  It  has 
the  indispensable  merit  of  perfect  naturalness,  and  the 
excellence  of  being  a  growth  from  a  soil  of  sound  wisdom. 
There  are  no  large  works  in  our  language  so  thoroughly 
ingraiued  with  wit  and  humour  as  Fuller’s  “  Worthies  of 
England,”  his  Church  History  of  Britain  no  less  so,  and 
the  essays  entitled  “  The  Holy  and  Profane  State” — 
essays  which,  in  wit,  and  wisdom,  and  just  feeling,  are 
not  unlike  the  Elia  Essays  of  Charles  Lamb.  The  genius 


*  Wordsworth’s  Ecclesiastical  Sonnets,  Sonnet  22. 


LTERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  HUMOUR. 


G63 


of  Fuller  is,  perhaps,  unequalled  in  harmonizing  a  play 
upon  words,  quiet  jocularity,  kindly  irony,  with  thought¬ 
fulness  and  genuine  earnestness,  and  in  making  the  tran¬ 
sition  from  quaintness  to  sublimity. 

The  great  satire  of  the  eighteenth  century,  “  Gulliver’s 
Travels,”  exemplifies  another  form  of  wit,  too  often  repul¬ 
sive,  not  only  by  indecent  coarseness,  but  by  that  misan¬ 
thropy  which  darkens  the  writings  of  Swift.  His  morbid 
contemplation  of  the  vices  and  follies  of  his  fellow-beings 
betrays  the  disease  which,  probably,  clung  to  his  whole 
life,  distorting  and  darkening  it  with  the  dread  that  in¬ 
sanity  had  a  lurking-place  in  his  brain — that  haunting 
consciousness,  which  once  was  expressed  when  walking 
with  the  author  of  the  Night  Thoughts,  (like  himself  a 
dealer  in  distempered  fancies  and  feelings,)  Swift,  after 
gazing  earnestly  at  a  noble  elm  which  was,  in  its  upper¬ 
most  branches,  withered  and  decayed,  pointing  to  it,  said 
to  Dr.  Young,  “  I  shall  be  like  that  tree — I  shall  die  at 
the  top.”*  Arbuthnot,  the  friend  of  Swift  and  Pope, 
is  believed  to  have  had  more  learning  and  as  much  wit 
as  either  of  them,  and  with  it  all  a  sweetness  of  temper 
and  purity  of  character  which  made  Swift  exclaim,  “Oh, 
if  the  world  had  but  a  dozen  Arbuthnots  in  it,  I  would 
burn  my  Travels  !”  It  is  a  sad  pity  that  his  genius  was 
not  more  open  to  influences  of  such  a  character,  or  of  the 
equally  admirable  and  amiable  nature  of  his  other  friend, 
Bishop  Berkeley. 

The  best  and  most  agreeable  specimen  of  English  humour 
(it  is  humour  in  contrast  to  wit)  which  belongs  to  that 
period,  is  Steele’s  invention,  and  Addison’s  use,  of  the 


*  Scott’s  Life  of  Swift,  p.  291.  Am.  ed. 


370 


LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 


character  of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley.  This  will  he  felt  by 
any  one  who  will  select  the  papers  in  the  Spectator  which 
are  devoted  to  him,  and  read  them  continuously,  following 
the  good  knight  to  his  mansion,  to  the  assizes,  to  the 
parish  church,  where,  as  soon  as  he  wakes  out  of  a  nap 
during  the  sermon,  he  sends  his  footman  to  wake  up  any 
of  the  congregation  who  chance  to  be  asleep ;  then  onward 
to  his  death-bed,  after  having  bequeathed  (his  will  chanced 
to  be  written  on  a  very  cold  day)  a  stout  frieze  coat  to  the 
men,  and  a  comfortable  hood  to  the  women,  in  the  parish. 
The  same  species  of  pure,  genial,  wise,  and  healthful  hu¬ 
mour  has  been  sustained  in  the  incomparable  Vicar  of 
Wakefield,  and  in  the  writings  of  our  countryman,  Wash¬ 
ington  Irving,  who  is  gifted  with  many  of  the  best  quali¬ 
ties  of  Goldsmith’s  genius.  Among  the  humorous  wri¬ 
ters  belonging  to  the  literature  of  our  own  day,  (there  are 
several  whom  I  will  not  stop  to  name,)  Charles  Lamb  repre¬ 
sented  a  form  of  humour  of  a  very  high  order,  and  peculiar 
to  himself — a  humour  which  has  assumed  a  deeper  interest 
and  commands  a  higher  admiration,  now  that  we  know  the 
terrible  memories  and  sorrows  of  his  days — 

“  The  troubles  strange, 

Many  and  strange,  that  hung  about  his  life,”* 

and  his  heroic  self-devotion  to  his  afflicted  sister. 

Our  English  literature  of  wit  and  humour  gives  abun¬ 
dant  proof  that  these  faculties  may  be  either  a  precious  or 
a  perilous  possession;  precious,  as  ministering  to  thought¬ 
ful  cheerfulness,  and  serving  the  cause  of  truth  and  gen¬ 
tleness;  perilous,  as  coupled  with  intellectual  pride  and 


*  Wordsworth’s  Lines,  written  after  the  death  of  Charles  Lamb, 
p.  467,  Am.  ed. 


LITERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  HUMOUR. 


371 


malevolent  passions.  I  have  spoken  of  the  repulsive  cha¬ 
racter  of  the  wit  of  Dean  Swift — still,  if  unattractive,  there 
was  something  in.  his  stern  hatred  of  vice  and  folly,  which 
commands  respect;  but  when  you  turn  to  such  as  Lord 
Byron’s,  (as  in  Don  Juan,)  there  is  disease  without  a  par¬ 
ticle  of  the  dignity  of  disease ;  there  is  lawless  force  of 
mind,  owning  no  restraint  of  reverence  for  aught  human 
or  divine — sustained  by  no  self-respect,  by  no  confidence 
in  virtue — womanly,  even  less  than  manly.  Thus  wit 
sinks  down  into  barren  scoffing.  It  is  the  lowest  moral 
condition  when  crime  clothes  itself  with  jest.  Salutary  as 
the  culture  of  the  faculties  of  wit  and  humour  may  be, 
when  justly  proportioned  and  controlled,  the  indulgence 
of  them  as  a  habit  is  as  injurious  to  him  who  so  indulges 
it,  as  it  is  wearisome  to  all  who  encounter  it.  The  habit 
of  always  looking  at  things  on  the  laughable  side  is  sure 
to  lower  the  tone  of  thought  and  feeling,  and  at  length 
can  only  content  its  restless  craving  by  attributing  the  ridi¬ 
culous  to  things  which  ought  to  be  inviolate  by  such  as¬ 
sociation.  When  the  habitual  joker  is  sometimes  seized 
with  a  fit  of  seriousness,  the  change  is  such  an  incongruity, 
as  to  provoke  the  retaliation  of  unseasonable  jocularity, 
and  no  one  is  as  sensitive  to  ridicule  as  he  who  habitually 
handles  it. 

Another  abuse  which  may  be  observed  in  intercourse 
with  the  world,  is  when  jocularity  is  employed  as  subter¬ 
fuge,  to  escape  from  the  demands  of  earnestness  and  can¬ 
dour,  and  the  jest  is  made  a  method  of  non-committal. 
It  is  said  that  Sir  Robert  Walpole  used  to  divert  his  guests 
away  from  political  conversation  by  a  strain  of  ribald  jest¬ 
ing;  and  a  more  modern  prime  minister,  the  late  Lord 
Melbourne,  is  described  as  one  whose  first  impulse,  in  ordi- 


LECTURE  ELEVENTH. 


S72 

nary  conversation,  was  always  to  treat  tilings  lightly.  This 
was  an  adroitness,  which  a  higher  order  of  statesmanship 
does  not  concern  itself  to  use. 

As  a  habit,  wit  will  prove  fatal  to  that  better  and  wiser 
cheerfulness  which  is  attendant  on  imaginative  culture — 
the  genuine  poetic  habit  of  beholding  or  discovering  the 
beauty  of  truth,  of  moral  worth,  and  whatever  of  beauty, 
spiritual  or  material,  is  given  to  man  to  enjoy.  It  is  said 
that  Hogarth  lamented  his  talent  for  caricature,  as  the 
long  practice  of  it  had  impaired  his  capacity  for  the  enjoy¬ 
ment  of  beauty :  while  the  best  critic  on  his  works  ap¬ 
plauded  him  as  an  artist  “in  whom  the  satirist  never  ex¬ 
tinguished  that  love  of  beauty  which  belonged  to  him  as 
a  poet;”  and  who  so  used  his  genius  as  to  “prevent  the 
instructive  merriment  at  the  whims  of  nature,  or  the  foi¬ 
bles  or  humours,  of  our  fellow-men  from  degenerating  into 
the  heart-poison  of  contempt  or  hatred.” 

It  is  a  narrowness  of  mind  which  causes  the  exclusion 

% 

of  either  the  poetic  sense  or  of  wit ;  it  is  partial  moral 
culture  which  refuses  the  good  that  is  to  be  gained  from 
either.  The  larger  mind  and  the  well-disciplined  heart 
find  room  for  both  powers  to  dwell  together  in  harmony. 
Of  such  harmony  let  me  give  a  single  example  in  proof — 
a  transition  from  a  passage  of  well-conceived  and  well- 
expressed  satire  to  one  no  less  distinguished  by  a  deep 
poetic  sense  of  beauty;  oi  rather  not  so  much  a  transition 
as  a  harmonious  combination.  I  quote  two  passages  which 
occur  in  close  connection  in  the  work  of  a  living  author — 
Mr.  Ruskin’s  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture. 

“Another  of  the  strange  tendencies  of  the  present  day 
is  to  the  decoration  of  the  railroad  station.  Now  if 
there  be  any  place  in  the  world  in  which  people  are  de- 


LITERATURE  OF  WIT  AND  HUMOUR.  37o 

prived  of  that  portion  of  temper  and  discretion  which  are 
necessary  to  the  contemplation  of  beauty,  it  is  there.  It 
is  the  very  temple  of  discomfort,  and  the  only  charity  that 
the  builder  can  extend  to  us  is  to  show  us,  plainly  as  may 
as  may  be,  how  soonest  to  escape  from  it.  The  whole 
system  of  railroad  travelling  is  addressed  to  people  who, 
being  in  a  hurry,  are  therefore,  for  the  time  being,  misera¬ 
ble.  No  one  would  travel  in  that  manner  who  could  help  it, 
who  had  time  to  go  leisurely  over  hills  and  between  hedges, 
instead  of  through  tunnels  and  between  banks;  at  least 
those  who  would,  have  no  sense  of  beauty  so  acute  as  that 
we  need  consult  it  at  the  station.  The  railroad  is,  in  all 
its  relations,  a  matter  of  earnest  business,  to  be  got  through 
as  soon  as  possible.  It  transmutes  a  man  from  a  traveller 
into  a  living  parcel.  For  the  time,  he  has  parted  with  the 
nobler  characteristics  of  his  humanity  for  the  sake  of  a 
planetary  power  of  locomotion.  Do  not  ask  him  to  ad¬ 
mire  any  thing.  You  might  as  well  ask  the  wind.  Carry 
him  safely,  dismiss  him  soon  :  he  will  thank  you  for  no¬ 
thing  else.  All  attempts  to  please  him  in  any  other  way 
are  mere  mockery,  and  insults  to  the  things  by  which  you 
endeavour  to  do  so.  There  never  was  more  flagrant  nor 
impertinent  folly  than  the  smallest  portion  of  ornament  in 
any  thing  concerned  with  railroads  or  near  them.  Keep 
them  out  of  the  way,  take  them  through  the  ugliest  coun¬ 
try  you  can  And,  confess  them  the  miserable  things  they 
are,  and  spend  nothing  upon  them  but  for  safety  and 
speed.’'* 

Now  turning  from  satire  on  ornament  misplaced  to  the 
sense  of  beauty  well-placed : 


*  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture  p.  106.  The  Lamp  of  Beauty. 
Y  32 


“  The  question  of  greatest  external  or  internal  decora¬ 
tion  depends  entirely  on  the  condition  of  probable  repose. 
It  was  a  wise  feeling  which  made  the  streets  of  Venice  so 
rich  in  external  ornament,  for  there  is  no  couch  of  rest 
like  the  gondola.  So,  again,  there  is  no  subject  of  street 
ornament  so  wisely  chosen  as  the  fountain,  where  it  is  a 
fountain  of  use;  for  it  is  just  there  that  perhaps  the  hap¬ 
piest  pause  takes  place  in  the  labour  of  the  day,  when  the 
pitcher  is  rested  on  the  edge  of  it,  and  the  breath  of  the 
bearer  is  drawn  deeply,  and  the  hair  swept  from  the  fore 
head,  and  the  uprightness  of  the  form  declined  against 
the  marble  ledge,  and  the  sound  of  the  kind  word  or  light 
laugh  mixes  with  the  trickle  of  the  falling  water,  heard 
shriller  and  shriller  as  the  pitcher  fills.  What  pause  is  so 
sweet  as  that — so  full  of  the  depth  of  ancient  days,  so 
softened  with  the  calm  of  pastoral  solitude  ?” 


LECTURE  XII. 


(frljc  literature  of  ^Tetter  SHriting.* 

Characteristics  of  a  true  letter— Historical  and  familiar  letters — Lord 
Bacon — Dr.  Arnold’s  remarks — Despatches  of  Marlborough — Nel¬ 
son — Franklin — John  Adams — Reception  by  George  III. — Wash¬ 
ington’s  correspondence — Bishop  White’s  anecdote  of  Washington 
— American  diplomatic  correspondence — Lord  Chatham's  Letters — 
Duko  of  Wellington’s — Archdeacon  Hare’s  remarks  on — General 
Taylor’s  official  letters — Familiar  letters — Cowley — Impropriety  of 
publishing  private  correspondence — Arbutbnot  and  Johnson’s  re¬ 
marks  on — Burns’s  Letters — Tennyson — Howell’s  Letters — The 
Paston  Letters — Lady  Russell’s — Pope’s — Hartley  Coleridge’s  remark 
— Chesterfield — Horace  Walpole — Swift  and  Gray’s — Cowper’s — 
Scott’s — Byron’s — Southey’s,  and  Lamb’s  Letters  of  Dedication — 
Lamb’s  to  his  sister. 

In  devoting  a  lecture  to  what  I  have  entitled  “  The 
Literature  of  Letter-Writing,”  I  had  less  hope  of  being 
able  to  make  the  treatment  of  such  a  subject  interesting 
than  of  pointing  out  some  of  the  uses  of  this  department, 
and  suggesting  the  agreeable  and  instructive  reading 
which  is  to  be  found  in  collections  of  letters.  It  is  a  de¬ 
partment  which  may  be  viewed  in  several  aspects,  either 
as  tributary  to  history,  political  or  literary,  or  as  a  form 


*  March  20,  1851.  Had  I  no  other  reason  for  publishing  this,  the 
last  of  this  series  of  lectures,  I  could  find  one  in  the  familiarity  if 
shows  with  American  history  and  its  original  materials.  Thorougnly 
imbued  as  was  the  writer  with  the  spirit  and  sentiment  of  English 
literature,  he  was  as  well-informed  in  all  that  related  to  his  own  coun¬ 
try,  its  men,  and  its  republican  institutions.  W.  B.  R. 

375 


STS 


LECTURE  TWELFTH. 


of  biography — thus  helping  us  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
movements  of  mankind,  or  of  individual  character,  by  its 
written  disclosures.  Our  English  literature  is  enriched 
with  collections  of  remarkable  and  very  various  interest: 
so  varied  as  to  furnish  an  abundant  adaptation  to  different 
tastes.  In  treating  this  subject,  my  aim  will  be  to  endea¬ 
vour  not  to  wander  off  into  either  history  or  biography, 
but,  as  far  as  possible,  to  confine  my  attention  to  the 
epistolary  literature  iu  itself,  making  some  comments 
on  the  principal  collections,  and  incidentally  considering 
the  character  of  a  true  letter.  It  happens  not  unfre- 
queutly  that  the  form  of  the  letter  is  assumed  for  the  sake 
of  convenience,  when  neither  the  writer  nor  the  hearer  is 
at  all  deluded  in  the  belief  that  the  production  is  what  ie 
usually  understood  by  the  term  “a letter,”  or  epistle. 
Essays,  disquisitions,  satires,  wear  the  epistolary  name 
and  garb,  fulfilling  a  not  unreasonable  fancy  of  the  writer 
that  such  a  medium  interposes  less  of  formality  between 
him  and  his  readers,  and,  indeed,  brings  them  into  closer 
and  more  life-like  relations — the  letter  being  somehow 
more  of  a  reality  between  the  writer  and  the  recipient, 
than  a  book  is  between  the  author  and  the  reader.  The 
“  Drapier’s  Letters”  of  Swift,  Bolingbroke’s  Letter  to 
Wyndham,  the  “  Letters  of  Junius,”  Burke’s  “  Re¬ 
flections  on  the  French  Revolution,”  and  other  similar 
productions,  of  which  there  are.  many  with  an  epistolary 
designation,  do  not  belong  to  the  proper  class  of  “  Letters ;” 
to  which  class  I  propose  to  confine  my  attention — at  the 
outset  simply  suggesting  to  your  minds  that  it  is  a  subject 
which  does  not  admit  of  convenient  illustration  in  a 
Lecture. 

1  have  arranged  this  subject  under  the  two  general  di- 


LITERATURE  OF  LETTER-WRITING. 


377 


visions  “historical  letters”  and  “familiar  letters” — an 
arrangement  which  may  be  found  convenient  in  the  gene¬ 
ral  consideration  of  it,  but  which  makes  no  pretension  to 
any  thing  of  logical  precision.  Under  the  first,  head,  I 
do  not  propose  to  limit  the  class  to  public  or  official  cor¬ 
respondence,  but  rather  to  comprehend  such  letters,  whe¬ 
ther  public  or  private,  which  subserve  a  knowledge  of 
history,  and  are  thus  valuable  in  the  study  of  it :  while 
the  second  class,  being  under  a  more  exact  principle  of 
classification,  is  intended  to  include  those  private  letters, 
the  nature  of  which  is  readily  understood  by  the  title 
“  Familiar  Letters;”  and  the  true  aim  and  character  of 
which  I  will  endeavour  to  explain,  when  I  come  to  that 
division  of  my  subject. 

Lord  Bacon,  in  his  treatise  on  the  Advancement  of 
Learning — that  great  legacy,  so  rich  in  counsel  for  the 
guidance  of  inquiry  in  various  departments  of  human 
knowledge,  that  treasury  of  sagacious  sentences  of  ad¬ 
vice — has  specially  referred  to  letters  among  what  he  calls 
the  “  Appendices”  to  history.  “Letters,”  he  says,  “are 
according  to  all  the  variety  of  occasions,  advertisements, 
advices,  directions,  propositions,  petitions,  commendatory, 
expostulatory,  satisfactory ;  of  compliment,  of  pleasure, 
of  discourse,  and  all  other  passages  of  action.  And  such 
as  are  written  from  wise  men  are,  of  all  the  words  of  man, 
in  my  judgment,  the  best;  for  they  are  more  natural 
than  orations  and  public  speeches,  and  more  advised 
than  conferences  or  private  ones.  So,  again,  letters  of 
affairs  from  such  as  manage  them,  or  are  privy  to  them, 
are,  of  all  others,  the  best  instructions  for  history,  and,  to 
a  diligent  reader,  the  best  histories  in  themselves.” 

Another  wise  counsellor,  in  a  later  day,  the  late  Di 
32* 


LECTURE  TWELFTH. 


Arnold,  speaking  words  of  special  advice  to  the  student 
of  history,  after  noticing  that  “  alchemy  which  can  change 
apparently  dull  (historical)  materials  into  bright  gold,” 
adds,  “  some  of  the  great  men  of  our  age  have,  in  all 
probability,  left  some  memorials  of  their  minds  behind 
them — speeches,  it  may  be,  or  letters,  or  a  journal ;  or, 
possibly,  works  of  a  deeper  character,  in  which  they  have 
handled,  expressly  and  deliberately,  some  of  the  ques¬ 
tions  which  most  interested  their  generation.  Now,  if 
our  former  researches  have  enabled  us  to  people  our  view 
of  the  past  with  many  images  of  events,  institutions, 
usages,  titles,  etc.,  to  make  up  with  some  completeness 
what  may  be  called  the  still  life  of  the  picture,  we  shall 
next  be  anxious  to  people  it  also  with  the  images  of  its 
great  individual  men,  to  change  it,  as  it  were,  from  a 
landscape  or  a  view  of  buildings,  to  what  may  truly  be 
called  an  historical  picture.  Whoever  has  made  himself 
famous  by  his  actions,  or  even  by  his  rank  or  position  in 
society,  so  that  his  name  is  at  once  familiar  to  our  ears, 
such  a  man’s  writings  have  an  interest  for  us  even  before 
we  begin  to  read  them  ;  the  instant  that  he  gets  up,  as  it 
were,  to  address  us,  we  are  hushed  into  the  deepest  atten¬ 
tion.  These  works  give  us  an  insight  not  only  into  the 
spirit  of  an  age,  as  exemplified  in  the  minds  of  its  greatest 
men,  but  they  multiply,  in  some  sort,  the  number  of  those 
with  whom  we  are  personally  and  individually  in  sym¬ 
pathy  ;  they  enable  us  to  recognise,  amid  the  dimness  of 
remote  and  uncongenial  ages,  the  features  of  friends  and 
of  brethren.” 

Of  the  many  indications  of  the  great  activity  and  zeal 
of  historical  research  and  study,  which  distinguishes  the 
present  times,  none  is  more  remarkable  than  the  care 


/ 


LITERATURE  OF  LETTER-WRITING.  379 

which  has  been  bestowed  in  collecting  and  publishing  the 
letters,  official  and  private,  of  men  eminent  in  their  day 
and  in  the  thoughts  of  posterity — men  illustrious  in  civil 
or  military  life.  Within  a  short  period  this  has  grown  to 
be  an  extensive  and  most  valuable  department  of  historical 
literature  ;  and  the  light  that  has  issued  from  it  has  not 
only  dispelled  frequently  much  of  traditional,  oft-re¬ 
peated  error,  but  given  to  the  historian,  both  student  and 
writer,  larger  privileges  of  power  to  gain  the  truth,  and 
new  duties  in  striving  for  it.  It  is  within  a  few  years 
past  that  English  history  has  been  illustrated  by  the  pub¬ 
lication  of  Cromwell’s  letters,  of  the  letters  of  the  Duke 
of  Marlborough,  the  Stuart  papers,  the  letters  to  and 
from  the  leader  of  that  luckless  family  during  all  their 
years  of  hope  and  despair  for  the  recovery  of  the  throne 
of  England,  the  correspondence  of  Lord  Chatham,  the 
despatches  of  Nelson,  and  all  the  despatches  and  general 
orders  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  beginning  at  a  camp 
in  India  and  closing  after  the  battle  of  Waterloo.  In 
American  history,  the  contributions  of  epistolary  materials 
have  been  no  less  valuable ;  for  we  have  the  whole  series 
of  the  letters  of  Washington,  extending  through  his  ca¬ 
reer  of  military  and  civil  services,  and  illustrating  both 
his  public  and  private  life  ;  the  letters  of  Dr.  Franklin, 
comprehending  a  scientific,  as  well  as  political,  career, 
and  the  composite  collection  of  letters  from  various  pens, 
entitled  “The  Diplomatic  Correspondence  of  the  Revo¬ 
lution  and  of  the  period  of  the  Confederation.”  Many 
other  collections  of  letters  have  appeared  both  in  England 
and  the  United  States ;  but  the  most  important  which  I 
have  mentioned  amply  exemplify  the  extent  to  which  his¬ 
tory  has  of  late  received  contributions  of  this  kind 


3S0 


LECTURE  TWELFTH. 


Their  general  historical  value  I  need  not  stop  to  speak  of ; 
but  let  me  remark  that,  as  many  minds  are  attracted  by 
biography,  and  find  iu  the  deeds  and  words  of  their  fel¬ 
low-men  individually  an  interest  and  sympathy  more  vivid 
than  that  which  general  history  inspires,  a  collection  of 
letters  may  have  suck  completeness — may  be  so  identified, 
both  as  to  time  and  the  participation  of  the  writer  in 
public  events — that  history  may  be  read  in  the  letters,  and 
thus  achieved  through  the  medium  of  biography.  It  is 
a  method  of  reading  which  will  be  found  very  agreeable, 
as  well  as  instructive,  and  has  a  peculiar  advantage,  too, 
in  giving  the  reader  that  discipline  of  mind  which  may 
be  gained  by  the  effort,  to  which  he  is  attracted  con¬ 
sciously,  or  unawares,  of  giving  something  of  historical 
consistency  to  the  informal  and  familiar  narrative  of 
events  found  in  a  series  of  letters;  and,  further,  the  moral 
discipline  of  freer  opinion,  instead  of  that  more  submis¬ 
sive  process  of  always  having  his  mind  made  up  for  him 
by  that  kind  of  historical  dictation  of  which  Charles 
Lamb  complained,  when  he  said,  “  The  modern  historian 
flings  at  once  the  dead  weight  of  his  own  judgment  into 
the  scale,  and  settles  the  matter,”  when  a  wider  and  more 
independent  sense  of  truth  would  come  to  a  less  arbitrary 
conclusion. 

To  all  readers  of  history,  whether  the  taste  be  for  pure 
history  or  for  biography,  a  letter  will  often  give  a  reality 
to  an  historical  occurrence,  the  truth  of  which  is  other¬ 
wise  much  less  life-like.  Allow  me  to  give  an  illustration 
of  this  in  a  well-known  incident  in  our  own  history.  1 
refer  to  what  may  be  considered  the  very  last  fact  in  the 
history  of  the  war  of  American  Independence,  the  shaking 
of  hands  as  it  were,  when  the  fighting  was  done,  the  re- 


3S1 


LITERATURE  OF  LETTER-WRITING. 

ception  by  George  the  Third  of  the  first  American  ambas¬ 
sador,  which  consummated  the  treaty  of  peace,  and  the 
recognition  by  Great  Britain  of  the  United  States  among 
the  nations  of  the  earth.  The  pertinacity  with  which  the 
British  monarch  had  protracted  the  war,  while  it  showed 
the  unwise  statesmanship  of  the  times,  illustrated  two 
traits  in  the  king’s  character — his  obstinacy  and  his  ho¬ 
nesty.  He  probably  thought  he  had  no  more  right  to  con¬ 
sent  to  the  partition  of  the  British  Empire  than  to  pawn 
or  part  with  the  crown  jewels;  and  thus  an  unwise  and 
unnatural  war  was  lengthened  out,  even  after  the  ques¬ 
tion  of  independence  was  practically  settled.  The  obstinacy 
of  the  sovereign  had,  however,  an  element  of  uprightness 
in  it,  which  may  be  spoken  of  with  respect,  especially 
when  one  reflects  on  what  is  not  so  generally  known,  that 
anxiety  and  sleeplessness,  during  the  American  war,  are 
believed,  by  those  who  had  opportunities  of  judging,  to 
have  laid  the  foundation  of  that  mental  malady  with 
which  George  the  Third  was  afflicted  during  many  of  the 
latter  years  of  his  life.  The  first  American  minister  to 
his  court  was,  let  it  be  remembered,  John  Adams,  one 
whose  name  could  not  but  have  been  familiar  to  the  king 
as  one  of  the  earliest  and  most  strenuous  of  the  leaders  of 
colonial  resistance.  The  interview  on  his  reception  was 
one  full  of  impressive  recollections  for  both,  accompanied 
with  more  than  ordinary  emotion,  and  it  comes  within 
the  scope  of  general  history  to  record  that  it  was  conducted 
in  a  manner  honourable  to  each.  It  is,  however,  Mr. 
Adams’s  letter  to  Mr.  Jay  that  alone  produces  an  adequate 
conception  of  the  interview.  Mr.  Adams  mentions,  that 
his  first  thought  and  intention  was  to  deliver  his  creden¬ 
tials  silently  and  retire,  but  being  advised  by  several  of 


3S2 


LECTURE  TWELFTH. 


the  other  foreign  ministers  to  make  a  speech,  he  made,  a 
short  address  to  the  king,  concluding  with  the  expression 
of  the  hope  of  “  being  instrumental  in  restoring  an  entire 
esteem,  confidence,  and  affection,  or,  in  better  words,  the 
old  good-nature  and  the  old  good-humour,  between  peo¬ 
ple  who,  though  separated  by  an  ocean,  and  under  differ¬ 
ent  governments,  have  the  same  language,  a  similar 
religion,  and  kindred  blood.” 

This  was  well  said — worthy  of  the  representative  of  the 
young  nation — manly  thoughts  and  feelings,  well  meant 
and  well  worded.  Mr.  Adams,  in  his  letter,  goes  on  to 
say :  “The  King  listened  to  every  word  I  said  with  dignity, 
but  with  an  apparent  emotion.  Whether  it  was  the  nature 
of  the  interview,  or  whether  it  was  my  visible  agitation,  for 
I  felt  more  thau  I  did  or  could  express,  that  touched  him,  I 
cannot  say;  but  he  was  much  affected,  and  answered  me 
with  more  tremor  than  I  had  spoken  with,  and  said — 

“  ‘  Sir,  the  circumstances  of  this  audience  are  so  extra¬ 
ordinary,  the  language  you  have  now  held  is  so  extremely 
proper,  and  the  feelings  you  have  discovered  so  justly 
adapted  to  the  occasion,  that  I  must  say  that  I  not  only 
receive  with  pleasure  the  assurance  of  the  friendly  dispo¬ 
sitions  of  the  United  States,  but  that  I  am  very  glad  the 
choice  has  fallen  upon  you  to  be  their  minister.  I  wish 
you,  sir,  to  believe,  and  that  it  may  be  understood  in 
America,  that  I  have  done  nothing  in  the  late  contest 
but  what  I  thought  myself  indispensably  bound  to  do  by 
the  duty  which  I  owed  to  my  people.  I  will  be  very  frank 
with  you.  I  was  the  last  to  consent  to  the  separation ; 
but  the  separation  having  been  made,  and  having  become 
inevitable,  I  nave  always  said,  as  I  say  now,  that  I  would 
be  the  first  to  meet  the  friendship  of  the  United  States  as 


LITERATURE  OF  LETTER-WRITING. 


383 


an  independent  power.’  ”...  Mr.  Adams  adds,  “  He 
(the  king)  was  much  affected,  and  I  was  not  less  so;”  and 
certainly  the  occasion,  as  thus  pictured  in  a  letter  was  one 
fitted  to  awaken  no  small  emotion,  a  conflict  of  many 
emotions,  for  how  at  that  moment,  must  the  memories  of 
twenty  years  of  civil  strife,  with  all  its  varying  fortunes 
and  hopes,  have  risen  up  to  the  minds  of  those  two  men  as 
they  were  thus  confronted !  If  there  had  been  obstinacy 
and  wrong  in  the  royal  policy  which  had  assented  to  the 
first  restrictive  measure  on  American  trade  in  1764,  to 
the  Stamp  Act,  to  the  Boston  Port  Bill,  to  the  conduct 
of  the  war,  at  once  cruel  and  imbecile,  to  that  greatest  and 
most  tyrannic  error,  fatal  of  itself  to  reconciliation,  the 
hiring  of  the  Hessians — there  was  on  the  other  hand 
good  feeling  and  a  manly  frankness  in  the  expression,  at 
the  close  of  twenty  years  from  the  beginning  of  the  colo¬ 
nial  diifiulties,  of  a  solicitude  that  it  might  be  understood 
in  America  that  in  all,  he  had  done  nothing  but  what  he 
thought  himself  in  duty  bound  to  do. 

Not  the  least  interesting  portion  of  such  a  letter  is  that 
which  describes  what  passed  after  the  formalities  of  the 
interview  were  over.  “  The  King,”  writes  Mr.  Adams, 
“  then  asked  me  whether  I  came  last  from  France,  and 
upon  my  answering  in  the  affirmative,  he  put  on  an  air 
of  familiarity,  and  smiling,  or  rather  laughing,  said,  There 
is  an  opinion  among  some  people  that  you  are  not  the 
most  attached  of  all  your  countrymen  to  the  manners  of 
France.  I  was  surprised  at  this,  because  I  thought  it 
an  indiscretion  and  a  departure  from  dignity.  I  was  a 
little  embarrassed,  but  determined  not  to  deny  the  truth, 
on  the  one  hand,  nor  leave  him  to  infer  from  it  any 
attachment  to  England,  on  the  other.  I  threw  off  as 


884 


LECTURE  TWELFTH. 


much  of  gravity  as  I  could,  and  assumed  au  air  of  gayety 
and  a  tone  of  decision  as  far  as  was  decent,  and  said,  That 
opinion,  sir,  was  not  mistaken.  I  must  avow  to  your 
majesty  I  have  no  attachment  but  to  my  own  country. 
The  king  replied,  as  quick  as  lightning,  An  honest  (man) 
will  never  have  any  other.” 

I  have  quoted  these  passages  to  show  how  a  letter  may 
place  a  familiar  piece  of  history  in  a  more  vivid  light  of 
truth  and  reality  than  mere  historic  narration  gives  to  it ; 
illustrating  Horace  Walpole’s  remark  that  “  nothing  gives 
so  just  an  idea  of  an  age  as  genuine  letters;  nay,  history 
waits  for  its  last  seal  from  them.” 

It  is  in  another  letter  from  John  Adams  to  John  Jay 
that  there  occurs  a  character  of  George  the  Third,  as  just, 
probably,  as  has  been  written.  “The  King,  I  really 
think,”  says  Mr.  Adams,  “is  the  most  accomplished  cour¬ 
tier  in  his  dominions;  with  all  the  affability  of  Charles 
the  Second,  he  has  all  the  domestic  virtues  and  regularity 
of  conduct  of  Charles  the  First.  He  is  the  greatest  talker 
in  the  world,  and  a  tenacious  memory  stored  with  resources 
of  small  talk,  concerning  all  the  little  things  of  life,  which 
are  inexhaustible.  But  so  much  of  his  time  is  and  has 
been  consumed  in  this,  that  he  is,  in  all  the  great  affairs 
of  society  and  government,  as  weak,  as  far  as  I  can  judge, 
as  we  ever  understood  him  to  be  in  America.  He  is  also 
as  obstinate.  The  unbounded  popularity  acquired  by  his 
temperance  and  facetiousness,  added  to  the  splendour  of 
his  dignity,  gives  him  such  a  continual  feast  of  flatterv, 
that  he  thiuks  all  he  does  is  right,  and  he  pursues  his 
own  ideas  with  a  firmness  which  would  become  the  best 
system  of  action.  He  has  a  pleasure  in  his  own  will  and 
way,  without  which  he  would  be  miserable,  which  seems 


LITERATURE  OF  LETTER-WRITING. 


385 


lo  be  the  true  principle  upon  which  he  has  always  chosen 
and  rejected  ministers.”* 

It  is  a  happy  thing  for  the  student  of  history,  and 
indeed  for  the  American  citizen,  that  the  letters  of 
Washington  have  been  preserved  in  remarkable  com¬ 
pleteness — a  result  in  no  small  degree  owing  to  those 
exact  habits  of  business  which  a  controlling  sense  of  duty 
carried  through  his  whole  career.  The  manifold  lessons 
which  those  letters  inculcate  are  as  legible  as  that  admi¬ 
rable  handwriting,  which,  without  pretensions  to  elegance, 
or  that  delicacy  which  often  belongs  to  the  pen  of  men  of 
letters,  (such  as  Gray’s,  and  Cowper’s,  and  Southey’s,)  is 
eminently  characteristic  in  its  uniformity,  regularity,  and 
firmness.  The  historical  value  of  the  letters  may  readily  be 
conceived,  when  it  is  remembered  that  they  extend  over 
the  whole  era  of  early  American  nationality,  connecting 
it  by  actual  presence  and  participation.  I  speak  of  that 
era  in  an  extended  completeness,  beginning  with  the  old 
French  war,  which  is  properly  to  be  regarded  as  part  of 
the  preparation  for  the  War  of  Independence,  continued 
onward  through  the  Revolution,  its  immediate  sequel,  the 
feeble  period  of  the  Confederation,  and  the  triumphant 
completion  of  the  political  change  in  the  establishment 


*'  The  recently-published  diary  of  Mr.  Adams  contains,  under  date 
of  30th  March,  1786,  the  following  very  characteristic  ontry  : 

“  Went  at  nine  o’clock  to  the  French  ambassador's  ball,  where  wero 
two  or  three  hundred  people,  chiefly  ladies.  Here  I  met  the  Marquis 
of  Lansdowne  and  the  Earl  of  Ilarcourt.  These  two  noblemen  ventured 
to  enter  into  conversation  with  me;  so  did  Sir  George  Young.  But 
there  is  an  awkward  timidity  in  general.  This  people  cannoi  look 
me  in  the  face  ;  there  is  conscious  guilt  and  shame  in  their  counte¬ 
nances  when  they  look  at  me.  They  feel  they  have  behaved  ill,  ano 
that  I  am  sensible  of  it.”  Works  of  John  Adams,  vol.  iii.  p.  303. 

33 


i8e  LECTURE  TWELFTH 

of  the  Constitution,  and  Washington’s  administration  ; 
nay,  beyond  that,  to  the  tranquil  evening  of  that  life  so 
matchless  in  its  harmony,  in  its  freedom  from  contradic¬ 
tions,  the  quiet  glory  of  its  close  in  the  rural  seclusion 
of  Mount  Vernon.  Now  the  history  of  that  whole  era 
may  be  read  as  it  is  reflected  in  the  clear  mirror  of  that 
mind,  undimmed  by  any  unworthy  passion,  and  capacious 
enough  to  hold  within  it  the  image  of  his  country’s  annals 
for  near  half  a  century.  Nowhere  can  so  well  be  seen 
first  the  dutiful  and  not  degrading'  loyalty  of  a  colonial 
subject,  giving  to  his  king  and  country  a  soldier’s  ser¬ 
vice  ;  the  no  less  dutiful,  but  far  more  difficult,  transition 
from  loyal  obedience  to  resistance ;  the  progress  from 
peaceful  to  armed  resistance;  the  magnanimous  self-con¬ 
trol  and  heroism  alike  in  the  prosperity  and  adversity 
of  military  command;  the  perpetual  sense  of  subordination 
to  law;  and  the  willing,  happy  laying  down  of  power 
when  the  purposes  of  that  power  were  achieved  in  the 
public  good.  It  needs  no  comment  to  show  how  the 
Washington  letters  illustrate  all  the  eventful  years  of  his 
life,  but  there  are  other  portions  of  it  less  attractive  and 
less  known,  on  which  the  letters  alone  throw  light.  In  a 
course  of  historical  lectures  I  had  occasion  lately  to  treat 
of  that  uneventful,  that  uninviting  but  instructive  period 
between  the  peace  of  1783  and  the  adoption  of  the  present 
Constitution — those  latter  years  of  the  Confederation,  when 
the  nation  seemed  to  be  sinking  from  the  height  of  its 
new  independence  down  into  anarchy  and  the  world’s 
contempt;  and  nothing  seemed  to  my  mind  to  express 
with  so  deep  and  sad  an  eloquence  the  gloom  which  was 
gathering  over  the  land,  as  the  simple  words  of  disappoint¬ 
ment  and  depression  which  Washington  was  sending 


LITERATURE  OF  LETTER-WRITING. 


387 


from  Mount  Vernon  to  his  friends  and  correspondents. 
The  feeling  approaching  to  despair,  which  he  uttered  in 
confidence  in  the  darkest  days  of  the  war,  before  the  bat¬ 
tle  of  Trenton,  had  something  far  more  placid  and  less 
painful  than  the  bitterness  of  disappointment  and  distrust 
occasioned  by  what  seemed  so  like  popular  degeneracy  in 
a  season  of  safety. 

The  letters  of  Washington  serve  another  purpose,  in 
completing  a  biographical  impression  which  often  is  in¬ 
complete — made  so  by  the  very  awe  which  his  character 
inspires.  The  most  usual  idea  of  that  character  is  perhaps 
that  which  presents  it  in  a  kind  of  marmoreal  purity  and 
majestic  repose;  a  truthful  idealizing  of  those  high  and 
heroic  attributes  of  his  nature  which  lift  him,  if  not  above, 
into  a  lofty  region  of  humanity;  such  a  conception  as  a 
great  American  sculptor  has  embodied  in  marble,  and 
which  Southey  had  in  his  thoughts,  when,  in  one  of  his 
lyrics,  he  spake  of  America  as  the  land 

“Where  Washington  hath  left 
His  awful  memory, 

A  light  for  after  times.”* 

It  is  in  no  contradiction  to,  but  in  perfect  harmony  with, 
this  aspect  of  his  character,  that  other  phases  of  it  are 
visible  in  his  letters.  The  same  sense  of  duty  and  lofty 
self-respect,  which  at  times  produced  a  passionless  and  im¬ 
perturbable  dignity,  admit  at  other  times  the  utterance  of 
a  vehement  and  righteous  indignation,  or  a  placid  and 
half-humorous  tenderness  for  some  amiable  frailty  of  a 
fellow-being.  This,  too,  is  made  man:fest,  that  in  all  his 
large  and  varied  intercourse  with  men,  there  was  no  rcr'  1 


*  Southey’s  Works1  vil.  lit.  p  ?V . 


S88 


LECTURE  TWELFTH. 


sive  or  oppressive  dignity,  but  a  genial  and  modest  com¬ 
munion  with  them,  and  even  an  affectionate  fellowship 
with  those  who  were  closely  associated  with  him  in  the 
public  service  or  in  private  life.  In  short,  the  letters  show, 
what  history  cannot  do,  the  gentle  side  of  the  great  man’s 
nature,  which  endeared  him  to  all  who  came  within  the 
influence  of  it;  there  is  proof  of  this  in  a  little  incident 
which  might  easily  have  perished  out  of  the  memories  of 
men,  if  it  had  not  been  witnessed  by  one  upon  whose 
genuine  delicacy  of  feeling  it  was  not  lost,  and  who  wisely 
judged  it  worthy  of  record.  The  incident  is  so  simple, 
and  Bishop  White’s  little  narrative  of  it  is  given  with 
such  graceful  simplicity,  that  I  almost  fear  the  feeling 
cannot  be  communicated  by  repetition.  It  was  in  a  letter 
to  the  biographer  of  AVashington  that  Bishop  White  com¬ 
municated  what  may  be  entitled  an 

ANECDOTE  CONCERNING  PRESIDENT  WASHINGTON. 

“  On  the  day  before  his  leaving  the  presidential  chair, 
a  large  company  dined  with  him.  Among  them  were  the 
foreign  ministers  and  their  ladies,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Adams, 
Mr.  Jefferson,  with  other  conspicuous  persons  of  both 
sexes.  During  the  dinner  much  hilarity  prevailed ;  but 
on  the  removal  of  the  cloth,  it  was  put  an  end  to  by  the 
President — certainly  without  design.  Having  filled  his 
glass,  he  addressed  the  company,  with  a  smile  on  his  coun¬ 
tenance,  as  nearly  as  can  be  recollected,  in  the  following 
terms :  ‘  Ladies  and  gentleman,  this  is  the  last  time  I  shall 
drink  your  health  as  a  public  man.  I  do  it  with  sincerity, 
and  wishing  you  all  possible  happiness.’  There  was 
an  end  to  all  pleasantry.  He  who  gives  this  relation 


LITERATURE  OF  LETTER-WRITING. 


3S3 


accidentally  directed  bis  eye  to  the  lady  of  the  British 
minister,  (Mrs.  Liston,)  and  tears  were  running  down 
her  cheeks.”* 

I  have  referred  to  this  as  proof  of  that  blending  of 
tbs  gentle  with  more  impressive  traits  of  character, 
which  may  be  seen  in  Letters  and  not  on  the  pages 
of  history. 

The  letters  of  Dr.  Franklin  were  in  like  manner  re¬ 
markable  for  their  extended  historical  interest — more  ex¬ 
tended  indeed  than  Washington’s,  both  in  time  and  place, 
for  the  correspondence,  continuing  nearly  as  late,  began 
much  earlier,  and  carries  the  reader,  therefore,  further 
back  into  colonial  society ;  it  was  enlarged,  too,  by  a  long 
and  renewed  European  residence,  first  in  England,  with 
intercourse  with  Lord  Chatham  and  other  British  states¬ 
men  friendly  to  the  colonial  cause,  and  to  Franklin  person¬ 
ally,  and  afterwards  in  France,  where  the  sagacious  and 
simply-attired  republican  was  a  fashionable  novelty,  ca¬ 
ressed  by  the  nobles  and  ladies  of  the  court  of  Louis  the 
Sixteenth.  The  letters  of  Franklin  have  also  an  addi¬ 
tional  interest  by  his  connection  with  that  large  commu¬ 
nity,  the  society  of  men  of  science,  not  limited  to  the 
soil  of  any  country.  It  is  a  correspondence  which  ha3  fur¬ 
ther  attraction,  as  showing  that  fine  mastery  which  Frank¬ 
lin — by  the  help  of  a  plain  but  substantial  education,  by 
* 

*  Dr.  Wilson’s  Memoir  of  Bishop  White,  p.  191.  Let  me  here  re¬ 
cord  the  expression  of  my  regret  that  the  editor  of  a  work  published 
lately  in  this  country  called  “  The  Republican  Court,”  (p.  305,)  should 
have  preserved,  on  very  uncertain,  and,  to  my  mind  doubtful,  tradition, 
an  anecdote  of  Washington’s  violence  of  language  and  temper  in 
most  painful  contrast  with  this  anecdote  W.  B.  R. 

Z  33* 


390 


LECTURE  TWELFTH. 


native  sagacity,  and  continued  culture — acquired  in  the  use 
of  good  English  speech.* 

The  American  diplomatic  correspondence  of  that  period 
is  interesting,  too,  as  containing  the  impressions  of  sagacious 
men  trained  in  the  simplicity  of  republican  life,  (for  the 
British  colonies  in  America  were  virtually  republics  before 
independence;)  such  men  brought  into  contact  with  artifi¬ 
cial  European  society,  and  with  political  systems  fast  tend¬ 
ing  towards  the  great  revolutionary  convulsions  at  the  close 
of  the  last  century.  It  is  not  the  least  instructive  portion 
of  American  state-papers,  which  somewhat  later  describes 
the  progress  of  the  French  Revolution,  as  it  appeared  to 
one  with  high-toned,  aristocratic  political  views,  like  Mr. 
Grouverneur  Morris,  or  to  one  with  democratic  inclinations, 
like  Mr.  Monroe,  and  whose  letters  have  respectively  re¬ 
corded  what  they  witnessed  in  revolutionary  Paris. 

It  is  an  easy  and  natural  transition  from  the  statesmen 
of  the  American  Revolution  to  one  who,  in  Parliament, 
was  the  friend  and  advocate  of  America  in  the  hour  of 
need — the  Earl  of  Chatham ;  he  who,  as  William  Pitt,  holds 
a  title  of  the  world’s  bestowing,  “the  great  Commoner;” 
who  gave  to  England,  in  that  corrupt  and  degenerate 
eighteenth  century,  the  example  of  a  pure  and  lofty  pa¬ 
triotism,  and  whose  statesmanship  may  be  paralleled  with 


*  I  know  of  few  more  graceful  Specimens  of  style  than  one  from 
Franklin’s  letter  to  Lord  Karnes  on  17th  August,  1762.  “  I  am  now 

waiting  here  only  for  a  wind  to  waft  me  to  America,  but  cannot  leave 
this  happy  island  and  my  friends  in  it  without  extreme  regret,  though 
I  am  going  to  a  country  and  a  people  that  I  love.  I  am  going  from  the 
Old  World  to  the  New ;  and  I  fancy  I  feel  like  those  who  are  leaving 
this  world  for  the  next;  grief  at  the  parting — fear  of  the  passage — 
nope  of  the  future.”  Sparks’s  Franklin,  vol.  i.  p.  269.  IV.  B.  R. 


LITERATURE  OF  LETTER-WRITING. 


391 


Washington’s  in  magnanimity.  Unlike  Washington,  how¬ 
ever,  in  simplicity  of  character,  lie  seemed  impelled,  by  the 
fame  he  had  gained  as  an  orator,  to  carry  a  sort  of  oratori¬ 
cal  ambition  into  all  his  ways  of  life :  in  a  letter  of  advice  to 
his  nephew,  he  says,  “Behaviour,  though  an  external  thing, 
which  seems  rather  to  belong  to  the  body  than  to  the 
mind,  is  certainly  founded  in  considerable  virtues.”*  It 
has  been  said  of  him  that  his  very  infirmities  were  ma¬ 
naged  to  the  best  advantage,  and  that  in  his  hands  even 
his  crutch  could  become  a  weapon  of  oratory  ;  but  that 
this  striving  for  effect  has  helped  to  give  to  his  private 
letters  a  forced  and  unnatural  appearance — the  style  of 
homely  texture,  but  here  and  there  pieced  with  pompous 
epithets  and  swelling  phrases. f  The  praise  of  a  Roman 


*  Chatham  Correspondence,  p.  77. 

f  Lord  Mahon’s  History,  vol.  iii.  p.  20.  As  this  volume  is  going 
through  the  press,  I  have  received  from  London  a  little  tract  privately 
printed  by  Lord  Mahon,  called  "Lord  Chatham  at  Chovening,  1769.” 
Chevening  is  the  seat  of  Earl  Stanhope;  and  thither  in  1769,  in 
the  absence  of  the  owners  on  the  Continent,  came  the  valetudinarian 
statesman.  This  tract  contains  the  letters  of  Mr.  Brampton,  the  steward, 
describing  to  his  mistress  the  demeanour  of  the  guests :  “The  two  young 
ladies  in  the  yellow  mohair  room — .1  luster  William  in  the  nursery.” 
“  Lord  Chatham  playing  at  billiards  with  the  young  gentlemen  and  la¬ 
dies,  so  long  ns  to  bring  on  the  gout  in  his  ankle,”  &c.  <fcc.  It  would 
seem  from  the  tract  that  tho  poor  steward  had  some  trouble  from  the 
Earl’s  changcableness,  and  that  though  but  a  guest,  he  acted  (as  on  other 
occasions  ho  was  apt  to  do)  very  much  like  an  imperious  master. 

I  confess  a  strong  admiration  for  Lord  Chatham,  with  all  his  infirm- 
ities  ;  themselves  palliated  by  what  is  now  conceded,  his  occasional  in¬ 
tellectual  prostration.  Horace  Walpole,  whose  letters  are  read  by  every¬ 
body,  and  who  had  good  hereditary  cause  to  hate  him,  has  damaged 
his  fame  with  studious  posterity;  and  yet  where  is  there  a  nobler  tri¬ 
bute  to  an  English  statesman  than  in  one  sentence  of  Walpole,  in  a 
letter  to  Mason,  written  when  Chatham  was  in  nis  grave  ? — “  The  Adtni- 


392 


LECTURE  TWELFTH. 


spirit,,  in  tlic  best  sense  of  that  term,  has  often  been  justly 
claimed  for  Pitt;  and  when  writing  to  his  wife,  he  says  to 
Lady  Chatham,  “  Be  of  cheer,  noble  love!”  it  sounds 
like  Coriolanus  speaking  to  the  sister  of  Poplicola,  or 
Brutus  to  his  wife,  the  daughter  of  Cato.  If  the  Chatham 
correspondence — both  in  the  public  and  private  letters — is 
distinguished  by  this  stateliness  of  style,  it  is  no  less  so 
by  a  loftiness  of  feeling  and  by  the  large  thoughts  of 
genuine  statesmanship. 

If  Lord  Chatham’s  oratory  transgressed  into  his  letters, 
the  reverse  may  be  observed  in  a  living  British  statesman, 
more  illustrious  as  a  soldier.  That  simple  and  somewhat 
peremptory  sententiousness  which  marks  the  Duke  of 
Wellington’s  writings,  whether  an  important  public  de¬ 
spatch  or  a  private  note,  is  also  the  tone  of  his  parlia¬ 
mentary  speeches.  Whether  writing  or  speaking,  he 
uses  words  with  a  stern  frugality,  and  sends  them  straight 
to  their  mark.  Trained  by  the  discipline  of  camp  to 
know  and  feel  the  mischief  of  a  waste  of  words,  he  has 
gained,  through  long  service  as  a  soldier  and  a  statesman, 
a  soldierly  command  of  the  language,  producing  a  prac¬ 
tical  species  of  eloquence,  wherein  the  most  serviceable 
words  are  marshalled  in  compact  and  effective  order.  It 
is  now  near  fifty  years  since,  in  his  camp  in  India,  he 
said  that,  when  business  could  be  done  verbally,  corre¬ 
spondence  should  be  forbidden,  to  save  the  time  of  officers 
in  perusing,  considering,  and  copying  voluminous  docu¬ 
ments  about  nothing;  and,  as  commander-in-chief,  he 


ral  has  relieved  Gibraltar.  The  Spanish  fleet  ran  into  their  burrows, 
<m  \f  Lord.  Chatham  was  alive.”  Letters  to  Mason,  vol.  ii.  p.  179. 


W.  B.  R. 


LITERATURE  OF  L  E  T  TE  R- W  R I TI  N  G. 


393 


said,  “  If  officers  abroad  will  have  no  mercy  upon  each 
other  in  correspondence,  ...  I  entreat  them  to  have  some 
UDon  me  ;  to  coniine  themselves  to  the  strict  facts  of  the 
case,  and  to  write  no  more  than  is  necessary  for  the  elu¬ 
cidation  of  their  meaning  and  intentions.”  On  another 
occasion,  he  quietly  suggests  how  writing  may  be  a  dan¬ 
gerous  qualification  :  “  A  very  trifling  degree  of  educa- 

cation  and  practice,”  he  remarks,  “  will  enable  an  officer 
to  string  together  a  few  words  in  a  letter;  .  .  .  but  this 
ability  is  a  most  dangerous  qualification  to  the  possessor, 
unless  he  has  sense  to  guide  his  pen,  and  discretion  to 
restrain  him  from  the  use  of  intemperate  and  improper 
language.”* 

The  voluminous  publication  of  Wellington’s  letters  in¬ 
cludes  only,  it  must  be  remembered,  his  military  corre¬ 
spondence  ;  and  whatever  subjects  it  treats  of  are  either 
subjects  of  warfare,  or  are  looked  at  from  a  military  point 
of  view.  Indeed,  that  soldierly  vision  had  become,  in  a 
great  measure,  habitual,  and  may  be  discerned  in  his  civic 
career.  You  have  probably  heard  the  story  that  is  told 
of  him,  that,  when  it  was  represented  to  him,  as  constable 
of  the  Tower  of  London,  some  valuable  national  archives 
were  deposited  very  near  the  magazine,  he  replied  that 
they  could  not  be  of  any  damage  to  the  saltpetre. 
Thus  there  is  a  ready  explanation  of  a  letter  to  hi? 
adjutant-general  during  the  Peninsular  War,  the  subject 
of  which  has  rather  a  quaint  sound,  when  briefly  ana 
lyzed  in  an  index,  with  the  title,  “  Singing  of  psalms  in 
the  abstract  innocent.”  Military  discipline  is,  of  course, 
a  general’s  first  thought  and  duty,  and  accordingly  he 


*  Selections  from  Gurwood,  p.  429. 


504 


LECTURE  TWELFTH. 


says,  ‘The  meeting  of  soldiers  in  tlieir  cantonments  to 
sing  psalms  or  hear  a  sermon  read  by  one  of  their  com¬ 
rades,  is,  in  the  abstract,  perfectly  innocent  '  and  it  is  a 
better  way  of  spending  their  time  than  many  others  to 
which  they  are  addicted  ;  but  it  may  become  otherwise  : 
and  yet,  till  the  abuse  has  made  some  progress,  the  com¬ 
manding  officer  would  have  no  knowledge  of  it,  nor  could 
he  interfere.  Even,  at  last,  his  interference  must  be 
guided  by  discretion,  otherwise  he  will  do  more  harm 
than  gooij;  and  it  can  in  no  case  be  so  effectual  as  that 
of  a  respectable  clergyman.  I  wish,  therefore,  you 
would  turn  your  mind  a  little  more  to  this  subject,  and 
arrange  some  plan  by  which  the  number  of  respectable 
and  efficient  clergymen  with  the  army  may  be  in¬ 
creased.”* 

Like  Washington’s,  the  letters  of  Wellington  display 
the  same  solicitude  for  not  only  the  discipline,  but  the 
well-being  of  his  soldiers — the  same  thoughtfulness  of 
details,  coupled  with  the  genius  for  planning  and  execut¬ 
ing  large  operations.  There  is  a  pervading  good  sense, 
(to  call  it  by  the  humblest  name,)  whether  the  subject  of 
the  letter  be  the  use  of  currycombs  or  hair-brushes  for  the 
horses,  the  stern  repression  of  plunder,  the  respectful 
control  of  impracticable  allies,  or  the  report  of  a  great 
cattle.  In  the  despatches  to  his  government,  after  his 
victories,  there  is  always  a  genuine  soldierly  modesty. 
After  the  victory  at  Salamanca,  he  begins  a  letter  to  Earl 
Bathurst :  “I  hope  that  you  will  be  pleased  with  our 
battle,  of  which  the  despatch  contains  as  accurate  an  ac- 


*  Gurwood,  vol.  vii.  p.  231.  The  odd  entry  in  the  Index  is  to  be 
found  in  the  volume  of  Selections,  published  in  1851.  IT.  B.  R. 


LITERATURE  OF  LET  TER- W  R ITI N  0.  395 

count  as  I  can  give  you.  There  was  no  mistake;  every 
thing  went  on  as  it  ought.”* 

One  other  characteristic  of  these  letters  has  been  thus 
commented  on  by  one  of  the  authors  of  the  “  Guesses  at 
Truth “  Among  the  heroic  features  in  the  character 
of  our  great  commander,  none,  except  that  sense  of  duty 
which  in  him  is  ever  foremost,  and  throws  all  things  else 
into  the  shade,  is  grander  than  the  sorrow  for  his  com¬ 
panions  who  have  fallen,  which  seems  almost  to  overpower 
every  other  feeling,  even  in  the  flush  of  victory.  The 
conqueror  of  Bonaparte  at  Waterloo  wrote  on  the  day 
after,  the  19th  of  June,  to  the  Duke  of  Beaufort :  ‘  The 
losses  we  have  sustained  have  quite  broken  me  down ; 
and  I  have  no  feeling  for  the  advantages  we  have  ac¬ 
quired.’  On  the  same  day,  too,  he  wrote  to  Lord  Aber¬ 
deen  :  ‘  I  caunot  express  to  you  the  regret  and  sorrow 
with  which  I  look  round  me  and  contemplate  the  loss 
I  have  sustained,  particularly  in  your  brother.  The  glory 


*'  Letter  of  July  24,  1812.  Selections,  p.  614.  There  is  a  passage 
in  one  of  Lord  Wellington’s  letters  from  India  which  I  am  tempted  to 
quote  as  (so  it  seems  to  me)  the  concentration  of  practical  wisdom. 
It  embodies  good  counsel  for  others  besides  soldiers  :  “  I  wish  to  draw 
your  attention  to  the  secresy  of  your  proceedings.  There  is  nothing 
more  certain  than  that,  out  of  one  hundred  affairs,  ninety-nine  might 
be  posted  up  at  the  market-cross  without  injury  to  the  public 
service  ;  but  the  misfortune  is  that,  when  public  business  is  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  general  conversation,  and  is  not  kept  secret  as  a  matter  of 
course  upon  every  occasion,  it  is  very  difficult  to  keep  it  a  secret  upon 
that  occasion  when  it  is  necessary.  There  is  an  awkwardness  in  a 
secret  which  enables  discerning  men  (of  which  description  there  are 
always  plenty  in  an  army)  invariably  to  find  it  out:  and  it  may  be 
depended  upon,  that,  whenever  the  public  service  ought  to  be  kept 
secret,  it  always  suffers  when  it  is  exposed  to  public  view.1'  Letter  of 
June  28,  1804.  Selections,  p.  177.  W.  B.  R. 


398 


LECTURE  TWELFTH. 


resulting  from  such  actions,  so  dearly  bought,  is  no  con¬ 
solation  to  me,  and  I  cannot  suggest  it  as  any  to  you 
and  his  friends;  but  I  hope  that  it  may  be  expected  that 
this  last  one  has  been  so  decisive  as  that  no  doubt  remains 
that  our  exertions  and  our  individual  losses  will  be  re¬ 
warded  by  the  early  attainment  of  our  just  object.  It  is 
then  that  the  glory  of  the  actions  in  which  our  friends 
have  fallen  will  be  some  consolation  for  their  loss.’  He 
who  could  write  thus  had  already  gained  a  greater  victory 
than  that  of  Waterloo,  and  the  less  naturally  follows  the 
greater.”* 

An  example  of  the  same  fine  spirit  of  humanity,  of 
true  soldierly  gentleness  of  feeling,  will  no  doubt  readily 
recur  to  many  minds  in  the  letter  of  condolence  on  the  death 
of  a  gallant  son  addressed  to  an  eminent  American  states¬ 
man  by  the  victor  of  Buena  Vista.  As  a  part  of  mili¬ 
tary  literature,  the  despatches  of  General  Taylor  may  be 
spoken  of  as  having  received  the  stamp  of  history,  espe¬ 
cially  since  death  has  set  its  seal  upon  the  hero’s  charac¬ 
ter.  They  stand,  unquestionably,  among  the  most  re¬ 
markable  productions  of  the  kind  in  the  language,  whe¬ 
ther  considered  simply  as  specimens  of  genuine  and 
masterly  use  of  English  words,  as  military  narratives,  or 
as  illustrations  of  character.  They  made  the  soldier, 
President  of  the  United  States.  The  battles  might  have 
been  won,  the  campaigns  completed  ;  but  it  was  the  way 
in  which  the  story  was  told,  and  the  character  uncon- 


*  Hare’s  Guesses  at  Truth,  Second  'series,  p.  191.  There  is  to 
this  letter  a  very  characteristic  and  business-like  postscript  abc^t 
Oolonel  Gordon’s  horse.  W.  B.  R. 


LITERATURE  01  LETTER-WRITING. 


307 


bciously  disclosed  through  that  story,  that  gained  the  con¬ 
fidence  and  the  heart  of  the  nation.* 

I  proceed  to  the  second  division  of  my  lecture,  to  be 
more  briefly  disposed  of,  the  subject  of  familiar  letters — 
that  correspondence  which,  like  conversation,  is  held  with 
the  unreserved  confidence  of  private  life,  and  without  a 
purpose  of  publication.  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  this 
did  slowly  and  late  take  a  place  in  English  literature — a  fact 
which,  if  reflected  upon,  is,  in  some  measure,  illustrative 
of  the  character  of  the  race,  and  of  some  worthy  traits 
in  that  character.  There  is  a  passage  in  the  brief  me¬ 
moir  of  the  poet  Cowley,  written  by  his  friend  Dr.  Sprat, 
and  addressed  to  another  friend,  which  has  a  bearing  on 
this  subject,  and  which  has  often  been  referred  to  with 
complaint.  “  There  was,”  he  says,  “  one  kind  of  prose 
wherein  Mr.  Cowley  was  excellent;  and  that  is  his  letters 
to  his  private  friends.  In  those  he  always  expressed  the 
native  tenderness  and  innocent  gayety  of  his  mind.  I 


•  At  this  time  (February,  1855)  the  world  is  studying  with  intense 
interest  the  despatches  and  other  letters,  public  and  private,  from  the 
new  scene  of  blood  in  the  Crimea.  The  Anglo-French  alliance,  one 
might  imagine,  has  had  its  influence  on  national  style.  For  though 
the  despatches  of  Lord  Raglan  and  his  generals  have  all  the  precision 
and  business-like  simplicity  of  his  countrymen  on  such  occasions, 
florid  French  despatch-writing,  with  phrases  about  “  the  sun  of  Aus- 
terlitz”and  “conquering  a  peace,”  has  nearly  disappeared.  It  died  with 
Marshal  St.  Arnaud  at  Alma;  for  General  Canrobert  writes  with  the  pre¬ 
cision  and  directness  of  an  Englishman.  It  is  very  curious,  too,  to  ob¬ 
serve  the  indifference  with  which,  in  his  letters  to  his  government,  he 
refers  to  topics  which,  twenty  years  ago,  a  Bonapartist  could  not  think 
of  without  fury.  In  his  despatch  of  28th  November  to  the  Minister 
of  War,  speaking  of  the  first  onset  of  the  Russians  at  Inkermann,  he 
says,  “  Lord  Raglan  tells  me  the  firing  was  as  severe  as  at  anv 
time  at  Waterloo  !”  W.  B.  R. 


34 


LECTUIIE  TWELFTH. 


SOS 

think,  sir,  you  and  1  have  the  greatest  collection  of  this 
sort.  But  I  know  you  agree  with  uie  that  nothing  of 
this  sort  should  be  published ;  and  herein  you  have 
always  consented  to  approve  of  the  modest  judgment  of 
our  countrymen  above  the  practice  of  some  of  our  neigh¬ 
bours,  and  chiefly  of  the  French.  I  make  no  manner  of 
question  but  the  English,  at  this  time,  3re  infinitely  im¬ 
proved  in  this  way  above  the  skill  of  f  inner  ages ;  yei 
they  have  been  always  judiciously  sparing  in  printing 
such  composures,  while  some  other  witty  nations  have 
tired  all  their  presses  and  readers  with  them.  The  truth 
is,  the  letters  that  pass  between  particular  friends,  if  they 
are  written  as  they  ought  to  be,  can  scarce  ever  be  fit  to 
see  the  light.  They  should  not  consist  of  fulsome  com¬ 
pliments,  or  tedious  politics,  or  elaborate  elegancies,  or  gene¬ 
ral  fancies ;  but  they  should  have  a  native  clearness  and 
shortness,  a  domestical  plainness,  and  a  peculiar  kind  of 
familiarity,  which  can  only  affect  the  humour  of  those  for 
whom  they  were  intended.  The  very  same  passages 
which  make  writings  of  this  nature  delightful  among 
friends,  will  lose  all  manner  of  taste  when  they  come  to 
be  read  by  those  that  are  indifferent.  In  such  letters, 
the  souls  of  men  should  appear  undressed ;  and  in  that 
negligent  habit  they  may  be  fit  to  be  seen  by  one  or  two 
in  a  chamber,  but  not  to  go  abroad  in  the  street.” 

This  is,  indeed,  very  tantalizing,  especially  so,  for  Cow¬ 
ley’s  delightful  prose-essays  have  a  savour  of  what  must 
have  made  his  familiar  letters  most  excellent  of  their  kind  ; 
the  passage  described,  indeed,  the  very  perfection  of  such 
letters  in  the  very  reason  given  for  withholding  them. 
However  one  may  dissent  from  the  reasoning,  and  stili 
more  regret  the  application  of  it,  it  is  entiiied  to  some 


LITERATURE  OF  LETTER-WRITING. 


C99 


respect  as  having  a  basis  of  sound  sense,  and  expressive 
of  a  just  feeling — that  honourable  spirit  which  is,  I  be¬ 
lieve,  an  element  in  the  character  of  our  race,  it  was  so 
formerly,  more  so  than  now;  for  that  “modest  judg¬ 
ment,”  which  the  biographer  of  Cowley  spoke  of  as  re¬ 
straining  the  publication  of  private  correspondence,  has 
grown  to  be  old-fashioned ;  and  the  barriers  of  reserve 
have  been  broken  down  by  the  cupidity  of  booksellers, 
the  vanity  of  authors,  and  the  vicious  curiosity  of  readers. 
If  this  department  of  English  literature  has,  in  late 
years,  received  many  and  valuable  additions,  it  has  not 
been  all  clear  gain  :  the  sanctities  of  domestic  life  and 
the  proprieties  of  official  life  have  been  violated ;  the 
world  has  intruded  where  it  had  no  title  to  enter,  and 
often  learned  what  it  had  far  better  remained  ignorant 
of;  the  happy  confidence  of  social  communion  has  been 
startled  in  its  security ;  and  the  author  can  scarce 
write  a  familiar  note  without  misgiving  of  future  pub¬ 
lication. 

When  Pope’s  correspondence  was  surreptitiously  pub¬ 
lished  by  an  unscrupulous  bookseller,  Dr.  Arbuthuot 
wittily  spoke  of  Curll,  the  publisher,  as  a  new  terror  of 
death.*  When  the  letters  of  Robert  Burns  were  first 


*  Dr.  Johnson  once  remarked  that  the  practice  of  publishing  tho 
letters  of  literary  men  bad  grown  so  common,  that  he  made  it  a  point 
to  put  as  little  as  possible  in  his  own.  There  will  be  found  in  the 
London  Quarterly  Review,  a  few  years  back,  an  excellent  essay  on  this 
subject  in  its  relation  to  official  life,  on  the  subject  of  the  posthumous 
publication  of  Lord  Malmesbury’s  journals  and  letters.  Our  Ameri¬ 
can  diplomatic  subordinates  have,  of  late  years,  committed  the 
grosser  scandal  of  scribbling  for  home  newspapers.  A  greater 
indecorum,  and  one  more  detrimental  to  publio  interests,  can  hardly 
be  conceived.  W.  B.  R. 


■100 


LECTURE  TWELFTH. 


given  to  the  world,  disclosing  the  deplorable  frailties  of 
his  life — not  as  a  wise  and  feeling  biographer  might  have 
done,  but  iu  the  dark  colours  of  the  frenzy  of  genius, 
conscious  of  guilt  and  never  wholly  divorced  from  a  soul 
of  goodness — a  fellow-poet,  strong  in  the  might  of  a  life 
of  irreproachable  purity,  and  yet  compassionate  of  his  frail 
brother,  protested  in  earnest  prose  against  the  world’s  right 
to  penetrate  into  the  privacy  of  an  author’s  life.  I  refei 
to  a  pamphlet  of  Wordsworth’s,  in  which,  among  other 
remarks,  he  observed  that  “  The  Life  of  Johnson  by  Bos¬ 
well  had  broken  through  many  pre-existing  delicacies,  and 
afforded  the  British  public  an  opportunity  of  acquiring 
experience,  which  before  it  had  happily  wanted.”  A 
younger  poet,  Mr.  Tennyson,  has  also  made  his  protest 
against  the  growing  evil,  iu  some  vigorous  stanzas  ad¬ 
dressed  to  a  friend,  and  entitled  “ The  Age  of  Irreve¬ 
rence 


“You  might  have  won  the  poet’s  name, 

If  such  be  worth  the  winning  now, 

And  gained  a  laurel  for  your  brow, 

Of  sounder  leaf  than  I  can  claim. 

But  you  have  made  the  wiser  choice; 

A  life  that  moves  to  gracious  ends, 
Through  troops  of  unrecording  friends, 
A  deedful  life,  a  silent  voice. 

And  you  have  missed  the  irreverent  doom 
Of  those  that  wear  the  poet’s  crown  ; 
Hereafter  neither  knave  nor  clown 
Shall  hold  their  orgies  at  your  tomb. 

For  now  the  poet  cannot  die, 

Nor  leave  his  music  as  of  old, 

But  round  him,  ere  he  scarce  be  cold, 
Begins  the  scandal  and  the  cry : — 


LITERATURE  OF  LETTER-WRITING. 


401 


‘Give  out  the  faults  he  would  not  show ! 

Break  lock  and  seal!  betray  the  trust! 

Keep  nothing  sacred:  ’tis  but  just 
The  many-headed  beast  should  know.’ 

Ah,  shameless  !  for  he  did  but  sing 
A  song  that  pleased  us  from  its  worth: 

No  public  life  was  his  on  earth, 

No  blazoned  statesman  ho,  nor  king. 

He  gave  the  people  of  his  best : 

His  worst  he  kept,  his  best  he  gave. 

My  curse  upon  the  clown  and  knave 
Who  will  not  let  his  ashes  rest ! 

Who  makes  it  sweeter  seem  to  be, 

The  little  life  of  bank  and  brier, 

The  bird  that  pipes  his  lone  desire. 

And  dios  unheard  within  his  tree, 

Than  he  that  warbles  long  and  loud, 

And  drops  at  glory’s  temple-gates, 

For  whom  the  carrion  vulture  waits, 

To  tear  his  heart  before  the  crowd.”* 

The  volume  which  is,  I  believe,  the  earliest  collection 
of  letters,  is  a  singular  exception  to  that  old-fashioned 
English  reserve  which  I  have  spoken  of — the  volume 


*  On  a  kindred  subject,  that  of  the  rash,  posthumous  publication 
of  private  diaries,  or  rather  of  the  faithful  performance  of  duty  to  the 
dead  in  their  suppression,  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  conduct  of  Lady 
Bute,  the  daughter  of  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montague,  in  the  intro¬ 
ductory  anecdotes  prefixed  to  Lord  Wharncliffe’s  edition,  p.  21.  I  may 
here  observe  that  nothing  more  clearly  shows  the  popular  and  cursory 
character  of  these  lectures,  (and  this  was  my  brother’s  view  of  them,) 
than  that  among  the  poets  he  does  not  mention  Thomson  or  Collins,  or, 
among  the  letter-writers,  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montague.  W.  B.  R. 

34* 


*02 


LECTURE  TWELFTH. 


entitled  “  Familiar  Letters,  domestic  and  foreign,  partly 
historical,  political,  and  philosophical,  by  James  Howell,” 
in  the  times  of  Charles  the  First,  and  published  during 
the  Protectorate.  It  is  the  case  of  a  writer  setting  such 
esteem  upon  his  own  letters  as  to  collect  and  give  them  to 
the  world :  and  although  the  volume  is  now  a  neglected 
and  rather  rare  one,  the  welcome  it  had  is  proved  by  the  fact 
that  it  went  through  eleven  editions  in  a  century.  Howell 
was  a  traveller,  on  the  continent  and  in  England  was  in 
intercourse  with  men  of  various  celebrity  :  while  his  let¬ 
ters  show  much  curious  matter,  one  cannot  help  thinking 
how  high  a  value  such  a  correspondence  might  have  had, 
if  it  had  given  the  thoughts  of  a  stronger  mind  in  that 
momentous  period.  The  Paston  Letters,  though  of  much 
earlier  date,  were  not  published  until  the  latter  part  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  about  three  hundred  years  after 
they  were  written.  It  is  the  correspondence  of  the  Pas¬ 
ton  family  during  the  era  of  the  wars  of  York  and  Lan¬ 
caster,  comprehending  a  curious  variety  of  epistles,  from 
the  note  of  an  Eton  scholar,  with  thanks  for  a  box;  of 
raisins  and  figs,  to  letters  following  the  sad  fortunes  of 
that  simple  and  saintly  sovereign,  Henry  the  Sixth,  and 
his  heroic  queen.  When  these  letters  were  brought  to 
light,  after  their  long  sleep,  they  had  a  congenial  welcome 
from  Horace  Walpole,  who  said,  “  The  letters  of  Henry 
the  Sixth’s  reign  are  come  out,  and  to  me  make  all  other 
letters  not  worth  reading.  I  have  gone  through  above 
one  volume,  and  cannot  bear  to  be  writing  when  I  am  so 
eager  to  be  reading.”* 

A  very  pathetic  interest  attaches  to  the  collection  of 


*•  Letters  to  Lady  Ossory,  vol,  ii.  p.  297 


LITERATURE  OF  LETTER-WRITING. 


403 


the  Letters  of  Lady  Russel,  the  memory  of  her  husband’s 
tragic  death  on  the  scatfold  casting  a  solemn  light  over 
the  whole  correspondence  during  a  widowhood  protracted 
to  extreme  old  age,  and  distinguished  no  less  by  profound 
affection  to  her  departed  husband  than  by  a  widowed 
mother’s  untiring  duty  to  her  children.  Her’s  was  a  life 
of  genuine  womanly  heroism,  a  life  with  one  awful  sorrow 
in  its  centre,  sustained,  if  not  cheered,  by  thoughtful 
Christian  piety.  The  correspondence  is  the  unconscious 
portraiture  of  such  a  character,  in  which  were  combined 
the  spirit  of  submission  to  affliction  and  an  energetic  for¬ 
titude  that  shrank  from  no  duty.  There  is,  perhaps,  no 
more  touching  incident  in  British  annals  than  that  one  so 
well-known  on  the  trial  of  her  husband  for  treason,  when 
Lord  Russel  asked,  “  May  I  have  somebody  to  write 
to  help  my  memory  ?”  The  attorney-general  answered, 
“Yes,  a  servant.”  The  noble  prisoner  said,  “My  wife 
is  here.”  The  harshness  of  the  chief  justice  (Pember¬ 
ton)  was  softened,  when,  recognising  Lady  Russel’s  pre¬ 
sence,  he  added,  “  If  my  lady  please  to  give  herself  the 
trouble.” 

It  is  a  transition  from  letters  of  the  most  intense  and 
serious  reality  to  a  correspondence  the  most  superficial  in 
feeling  and  the  most  artificial  in  expression,  to  pass  to  the 
letters  of  Pope;  another  instance,  like  Howell’s,  of  the 
letter-writer  making  of  his  letters  to  his  intimates  a  book 
for  everybody.  They  were  modelled  after  the  French 
epistolary  school  of  Balzac  and  Yoiture,  (before  the  taleDt 
of  Madame  de  Sevign6  had  given  an  attractive  graceful¬ 
ness  to  French  letters,)  and  vitiated  by  the  ambition,  bad 
enough  in  any  use  of  speech  or  writing,  but  odious,  in  a 
familiar  letter — the  ambition  of  fine  thoughts  in  fine  words. 


434 


LECTURE  TWELFTH. 


Even  Mr.  Hallam’s  calm  judgmeut  stops  not  at  calling 
Pope  “  the  ape  of  Yoitare”  in  his  letters  to  ladies.*  And 
one  who  so  admirably  conceived  and  executed  the  true 
idea  of  a  familiar  letter,  as  Cowper  did,  in  shrinking  from 
that  applause  of  his  correspondence  which  Pope  was  ever 
coveting,  said  a  “  foolish  vanity  would  have  spoiled  me 
quite,  and  made  me  as  disgusting  a  letter-writer  as  Pope, 
who  seems  to  have  thought  that  unless  a  sentence  was 
well  turned,  and  every  period  pointed  with  some  conceit, 
it  was  not  worth  the  carriage.  Accordingly,  he  is  to  me, 
except  in  very  few  instances,  the  most  disagreeable  maker 
of  epistles  that  ever  I  met  with.  I  was  willing,  therefore, 
to  wait  till  the  impression  your  commendation  had  made 
upon  the  foolish  part  of  me  was  worn  off,  that  I  might 
scribble  away  as  usual,  and  write  my  uppermost  thoughts 
and  those  only.”f 

Of  that  society  identified  with  Pope’s  letters,  it  was 
well  said  by  the  late  Hartley  Coleridge,  “  Never  was 
literary  band  so  closely  united  by  harmonious  dis¬ 
similitude  as  that  which  comprised  Swift,  Pope,  Gay, 
Arbuthnot,  and  Parnell :  they  were  a  perfect  co-operative 
society,  and  might  be  said,  almost  without  a  metaphor,  to 
feel  for  each  other.  But  Swift  thought  for  them  all :  his 
was  the  informing  mind,  and  exercised  over  his  associates 
that  supremacy  which  philosophic  power,  however  per¬ 
verted,  will  always  maintain  over  mere  genius,  though 
elegant  as  Pope’s — over  simple  erudition,  though  extensive 
as  Arbuthnot’s.  Moreover,  whenever  a  limited  number 
of  men  form  a  league  or  union,  it  is  ten  to  one  that  the 


*  Literature  of  Europe,  vol.  iii.  p.  641. 
f  bouthey’s  Cowper,  vol.  iv.  p.  15. 


LITERATURE  OF  LETTER-WRITING. 


405 


least  amiable  will  be  the  most  influential.”*  Swift’s 
masculine  power  is  manifest  in  his  letters,  for  affectation, 
unless  the  affectation  of  rudeness,  came  not  nigh  him  . 
there  is,  too,  in  his  letters,  a  sad  reality,  from  the  connec¬ 
tion  with  that  strange  control  which  his  stern  nature 
gained  over  the  affections  of  two  women  at  the  same  time; 
his  mysterious  marriage  with  one,  and  the  final  heart¬ 
breaking  of  them  both.  Whenever  a  letter  of  Bishop 
Berkeley’s  appears,  it  shows  him  always  the  pure,  the 
gentle,  and  the  virtuous,  the  gentleman  and  the  divine, 
the  most  beautiful  character  of  that  generation,  the  moral 
footprints  of  whose  life  are  to  this  day  visible  on  American 
soil.f 

The  letters  of  Lord  Chesterfield  are  a  remarkable 
instance  of  celebrity  gained  unintentionally,  and  super¬ 
seding,  in  a  great  measure,  other  grounds  of  reputation. 
For  one  person  acquainted  with  his  character  as  a  states¬ 
man,  at  home  and  in  diplomacy,  the  rare  ability  displayed 
as  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland  in  the  administration  of 
that  most  unmanageable  section  of  the  British  empire, 
and  the  tradition  of  his  oratory,  twenty  know  of  his  letters 
to  his  son,  written  in  perfect  parental  confidence,  and 
published  years  afterwards  surreptitiously.  I  cannot  bet¬ 
ter  or  more  briefly  characterize  the  letters,  than  by  saying 
that  they  make  a  book  of  the  minor  moralities  and  the 
major  immoralities  of  life.  They  profess  to  deal  with 
nothing  higher  than  those  secondary  motives  which, 


*  Hartley  Coleridge’s  Biographia  Borealis,  p.  115.  Note  to  Life  of 
Bentley. 

f  No  one  that  heard  them  will  ever  forget  Mr.  Thackeray’s  brilliant 
crticism  on  Pope’s  letters,  and  his  sketches  of  the  society,  heartless  il 
may  bo,  but  very  fascinating,  which  they  illustrate.  W.  B.  R. 

2  A 


406 


LECTURE  TWELF1  tl. 


though  poor  aud  even  dangerous  substitutes  for  moral 
principle,  are  yet  not  to  be  despised  in  the  formation  of 
character — considerations  of  expediency,  reputation,  per¬ 
sonal  advantage ;  and  being  addressed  to  a  youth  of  un¬ 
couth  manners,  they  laid  that  stress  upon  grace  of  deport¬ 
ment  which  has  given  to  the  name  of  Chesterfield  a  pro¬ 
verbial  use.  The  letters  embody  a  great  deal  of  sound 
advice,  the  result  of  the  large  worldly  experience  of  an 
acute  and  cultivated  nobleman,  too  acute  not  to  know  at 
least  the  impolicy  of  much  of  the  world’s  wickedness. 
When  they  were  published,  Dr.  Johnson  pronounced  a 
pithy  and  coarse  sentence  of  condemnation,  which  may 
recur  to  the  minds  of  some  of  my  hearers,  who  will  recog¬ 
nise  my  restraint  in  not  repeating  it.  He  afterwards 
modified  his  censure,  and  said,  “  Take  out  the  immorality, 
and  the  book  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  every  young 
gentleman.”* 

It  is  to  another  man  of  the  world  of  Chesterfield’s 
times,  and  the  times  of  a  great  many  other  people,  that 
English  literature  owes  its  most  voluminous,  and,  in  some 
respects,  most  remarkable  collection  of  letters — I  need 
hardly  say,  I  refer  to  Horace  Walpole.  His  letters  count 
by  thousands :  about  three  thousand  are  in  print,  and  the 
Dublication  of  more  is  looked  for.  In  one  of  Scribe’s 
vaudevilles,  Madame  de  Sevigne  is  described  as  the  lady 


*  The  notes  to  this  lecture  have  been  too  far  multiplied  to  allow  me 
room  for  admiration,  as  a  matter  of  rhetoric,  of  Lord  Chesterfield.  I 
have  often  thought  that  a  biography  of  British  statesmen  by  an  Ame¬ 
rican,  and  from  an  American  point  of  view,  would  be  a  most  useful  and 
delightful  book,  and  on  its  pages  no  one  would  appear  more  brightly 
than  Lord  Chesterfield.  The  English  of  his  letters,  not  written  fof 
puhlioation,  but  in  the  strictest  confidence,  is  matchless.  W.  B.  R. 


LITERATCRS  OF  LETTER-WRITING. 


407 


who  used  to  write  letters  all  the  while.  Horace  "Walpole 
takes  the  palm ;  and  has  been  styled  the  prince  of  letter- 
writers,  a  title  well-earned  by  the  continuity  of  his  labours, 
or  rather  his  pleasures,  in  this  department  of  composition 
during  a  long  life.  His  letters  cover  a  period  of  more 
than  threescore  years,  beginning  in  1735,  and  ending  in 
1797,  a  few  weeks  before  his  death;  thus  touching  at  one 
end  the  times  of  George  the  Second,  and  the  Pretenders, 
and  Maria  Theresa,  and  at  the  other  the  French  Revolu¬ 
tion  and  Republic.  With  Walpole’s  large  political  and 
social  opportunities,  his  letters  are  full  of  the  history,  and 
fuller  of  the  gossip,  of  sixty  years — pleasant  reading,  but 
uncertain  authority.  A  shrewd,  but  sometimes  malevo¬ 
lent  commentator  on  his  fellow-men,  a  witty  observer  of 
manners,  he  sought  amusement  in  the  fopperies  of  a  fan¬ 
tastic  country  mansion  and  the  luxury  of  a  private  print¬ 
ing-press,  but  his  happiness,  rather,  I  think,  in  the  luxu¬ 
rious  indulgence  of  perpetual  letter-writing  to  correspond¬ 
ents  of  both  sexes  and  various  ages ;  and  twelve  octavo 
volumes,  with  an  indefinite  series  in  prospect,  are  the 
record  of  this  indulgence.  An  elegant  sefishness,  tem¬ 
pered  wilh  much  kindly  feeling  for  his  friends,  is  undis¬ 
guised  in  his  letters ;  and  a  self-indulgent  frivolity  deepens 
into  earnestness  only  in  a  fervid  indignation,  which  he 
was  one  of  the  first  to  utter  against  the  African  slave- 
trade,  and  when,  near  the  close  of  life,  his  imperturbable 
voluptuousness  was  startled  by  the  atrocities  of  the  French 
Revolution.  The  letters,  faithful  to  the  last,  bring  their 
story  very  near  to  the  old  man’s  death — the  melancholy 
conclusion  of  eighty  years  of  worldlincss.  It  is  in  his  last 
letter  but  one  to  Lady  Ossory,  that  he  describes  himself  as 
a  sort  of  Methuselah,  whom  fourscore  nephews  and  nieces 


408 


LECTURE  TWELFTH. 


were  annually  brought  to  stare  at.  The  title  of  Earl  of 
Orford  came  too  late  to  be  welcome;  he  never  took  his 
place  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  even  evaded  the  dignity 
by  either  signing  himself  “  uncle  of  the  late  Earl  of 
Orford,”  or  simply  with  a  capital  0,  almost  as  if,  with 
something  of  hitter  self-satire,  he  meant  by  the  cipher  to 
symbolize  the  nothingness  of  his  state  of  being.* 

To  turn  from  Walpole’s  letters  to  those  of  his  once 
friend  and  travelling  companion,  the  poet  Gray,  is  like 
passing  from  the  throng  of  the  world  of  politics  or  fashion 
into  the  calm  and  cloistered  seclusion  of  a  college.  That 
seclusion  was  connected  with  both  the  virtues  and  the 
weaknesses  of  Gray’s  character,  his  purity,  his  gentleness, 
his  studious  love  of  books,  and  with  his  dainty  and  almost 
effeminate  shrinking,  not  only  from  active  life,  but  even 
from  the  publicity  of  authorship,  and  social  intercourse 
with  mankind  or  womankind.  Cowper  said,  “  I  once 
thought  Swift’s  letters  the  best  that  could  be  written, 
but  I  like  Gray’s  better.  His  humour,  or  his  wit,  or 
whatever  it  is  to  be  called,  is  never  ill-natured  or  offen¬ 
sive,  and  yet,  I  think,  equally  poignant  with  the  Dean’s.”')' 


*  The  letters  to  Lady  Ossory  are  certainly  marked  by  a  superior 
tone  of  seriousness  and  dignity,  and  no  solemn  moralist  can  write  more 
genuine  words  of  honest  self-reproach,  than  Walpole  did  when  he  said, 
“When  young,  I  wished  for  fame,  not  examining  whether  I  was 
capablo  of  attaining  it,  nor  considering  in  what  light  fame  was  desi¬ 
rable.  There  are  two  parts  of  honest  fame;  that  attendant  on  the 
truly  great,  and  that  better  sort  which  is  due  to  the  good.  I  fear  I  did 
not  aim  at  the  latter,  nor  discover,  till  too  late,  that  I  could  not  com¬ 
pass  the  former.  Having  neglected  the  best  road,  and  having,  instead 
of  the  other,  strolled  into  a  narrow  path  that  led  to  no  goal  worth  seek¬ 
ing,  I  see  the  idleness  of  my  journey.”  W.  B.  R. 
t  Southey’s  Cowper,  vol.  iv.  p.  15. 


LITERATURE  OF  LETTER-WRITING. 


409 


The  letters  on  which  I  should  have  been  glad  to  have 
dwelt  the  most  I  must  dispose  of  briefly — Cowper’s  owu ; 
and  I  can  do  so  the  more  safely,  in  speaking  of  them  as 
the  purest  and  most  perfect  specimens  of  familiar  letters 
in  the  language.  Considering  the  secluded,  uneventful 
course  of  Cowper’s  life,  the  charm  in  his  letters  is  won¬ 
derful  ;  and  is  to  be  explained,  I  believe,  chiefly  by  the 
exquisite  light  of  poetic  truth  which  his  imagination  shed 
upon  daily  life,  whether  his  theme  was  man,  himself  or  a 
fellow-being,  or  books,  or  the  mute  creation  which  he 
loved  to  handle  with  such  thoughtful  tenderness.  His 
seclusion  did  not  separate  him  from  sympathy  with  the 
stirring  events  of  his  time;  and,  alike  in  seasons  of  sun¬ 
shine  or  of  gloom,  there  is  in  his  letters  an  ever-present 
beauty  of  quiet  wisdom,  and  a  gentle  but  fervid  spirit. 
There  is,  I  believe,  no  long  collection  of  letters  which 
can  be  continuously  read  with  the  same  sustained  interest, 
following  the  writer  through  cheerfulness  and  despondency 
into  the  cloud,  from  which  he  sent  forth  some  words  of 
sadness  as  it  mysteriously  closed  over  him. 

The  letters  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  Mr.  Lockhart’s  in¬ 
imitable  biography,  claim  the  same  high  praise.  There 
is  the  same  excellent  adaptation  of  the  letter  to  the  occa¬ 
sion  and  to  the  party  addressed,  which  is  essential  in  a 
true  letter.  There  is  also  the  same  power  of  so  expressing 
the  writer’s  feelings  as  to  move  in  sympathy  with  the 
correspondent,  and  for  the  correspondent’s  pleasure,  with¬ 
out  ever  sinking  into  egotism  or  vanity.  It  is  this — the 
mastery  of  the  subjective  character  of  the  composition 
which  is  at  once  the  difficulty  and  virtue  of  the  real  fa¬ 
miliar  letter.  A  child,  in  its  innocence  and  unreflective¬ 
ness,  toils  at  so  putting  its  heart  into  words ;  and  there 
35 


410 


LECTURE  TWELFTH. 


are  those  who  carry  into  mature  life  so  much  of  child¬ 
like  simplicity  of  character  as  to  be  unfit  for  letter- 
writing.  The  more  common  fault  is,  however,  in  the  other 
direction— a  gross  or  insidious  egotism.  Scott’s  style 
of  correspondence  has  a  very  high  merit  in  combining  a 
frank  expression  of  his  own  feelings  along  with  a  perpe¬ 
tual  mindfulness  of  the  feelings  of  those  to  whom  he 
writes. 

The  letters  of  Lord  Byron  displaying,  even  more  than 
his  poems,  his  command  of  vigorous  English  speech — 
make  a  perilous  display  of  a  morbid  egotism,  redeemed, 
indeed,  at  times,  by  flashes  of  kindly  feeling,  of  generous 
impulse,  and  healthy  opinion,  so  as  to  perplex  the  reader’s 
judgment,  or,  at  least,  to  plead  for  his  pity  to  the  misery 
of  a  soul  distempered  by  nature,  and  far  worse  by  a  life 
of  moral  lawlessness ;  and  by  that  pride  which,  tempting 
him  often  to  brave  the  world’s  opinion  by  even  affecting 
worse  thoughts  and  worse  deeds  than  were  imputed  to 
him,  was  fatal  to  the  truthfulness  of  his  character  and  of 
his  writings. 

Of  Southey’s  letters,  interwoven  with  his  biography, 
just  completed,  it  is  too  soon  to  speak  otherwise  than 
with  a  general  allusion  to  the  interest  of  them,  without 
attempting  to  measure  their  merits  and  their  faults. 

Charles  Lamb’s  letters  resemble  his  inimitable  essays — 
a  quaint  wisdom,  a  fine  literary  taste,  and  a  loving  and 
a  brave  heart  dwelling  together  in  that  humour  which 
was  his  peculiar  gift. 

Letters  of  dedication  may  be  merely  mentioned  in 
connection  with  this  general  subject.  The  early  dedi¬ 
cations  abound  in  noble  feeling,  fitly  expressed,  with 
an  eloquence  that  is  midway  between  oratory  and  the 


LITERATURE  OF  LE  TT  ER- WR I T I  X  G. 


411 


familiarity  of  a  letter.  There  followed  a  long  period 
during  which  they  were  vitiated  by  fulsome  and  ser¬ 
vile  flattery.  Of  late  years,  truth  has  been  restored  on 
the  dedication  page ;  and  many  a  one,  in  verse  as  well  as 
prose,  is  a  record  of  a  genuine  feeling  of  reverence,  of 
admiration,  and  of  love.  Let  me  refer  to  one  for  the  sake 
of  a  thought  I  wish  (in  conclusion)  to  leave  in  your 
minds.  Charles  Lamb  dedicated  his  earliest  volume  to 
his  sister — that  afflicted  sister  to  whom  he  devoted  all 
his  days.  He  consulted  Coleridge  in  a  letter  in  which 
he  said,  “  I  have  another  sort  of  dedication  in  my  head 
for  my  few  things,  which  I  want  to  know  if  you  approve 
of.  I  mean  to  inscribe  them  to  my  sister.  It  will  be 
unexpected,  and  it  will  give  her  pleasure ;  or  do  you 
think  it  will  look  whimsical  at  all  ?  .  .  .  There  is  a  mo¬ 
notony  in  the  affections,  which  people  living  together  (or, 
as  we  do  now,  very  frequently  seeing  each  other)  are  apt 
to  give  into ;  a  sort  of  indifference  in  the  expression  of 
kindness  for  each  other,  which  demands  that  we  should 
sometimes  call  to  our  aid  the  trickery  of  surprise.”* 


*  Those  last  words  have  suggested  to  me  a  dedication  of  this 
volume  which  I  had  not  before  designed.  In  parting  with  it,  it 
seemed  natural  and  congenial  with  my  feelings  to  the  dead  to  add 
a  tribute,  most  deserved  and  unexpected,  to  the  living.  W.  B.  R. 


THE  END. 


STEREOTYPED  BY  L.  JOHNSON  a  CO. 
PHILADELPHIA. 


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